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?

IS IT TRUE that we have been reading a bit on the total electrical power generation capacity of the United States with an eye toward figuring out just how much of an impact that the step down generators that Earthcare Energy will hopefully be making in Evansville can make?…that the Wall Street Journal reported today that the total net generation of electricity in the USA is roughly 4 Trillion kilowatts (4,000,000,000,000,000 Watts)?…that the report written by Concurrent Technologies for the Air Force Research Lab states that the total 100% capacity of all of the power available from step down generation at an 80% efficiency is 53.7 GW (53,700,000,000,000 Watts)?…that at a market penetration of 100% operating at 80% net efficiency (not going to happen) the total impact on the capacity of the grid is 1.3%?…that it would seem that some of the grandiose claims that have been made may not stand up to vetting of the market with realistic penetration probabilities either?

IS IT TRUE that changing the subject that the Indiana brown bats, the retired pigeon brigade, the rats, and the rat snakes that have been leading the Occupy McCurdy movement for years now had a handful of human visitors yesterday?…that the CCO boots on the ground guy observed 6 EPD cruisers in the McCurdy parking lot yesterday trying to root out some wayward humans who had gained access to the building?…that every day that the McCurdy sits there with nothing going on is a day that the final cost to refurbish it increase?…that we are also wondering what is going on with the Riverhouse next door that would not even auction for $375,000 last year but did have an interested party in November?…that the McCurdy is still on record as being owned by none other than City Centre Properties and that the taxes still are not paid?…that another tax installment is looming and will be due on May 10, 2012?

IS IT TRUE that for those of you who may have been watching or having a curiosity about the Supreme Court review of the constitutionality of Obamacare some of the play by play of the questioning by the justices is beginning to be published?…that in an article today called “A Constitutional Awakening” it was reported that the Obama administration lawyers are getting roughed up by the three justices thought to be on the fence and thus the real decision makers?…that Justice Antonin Kennedy asked “can you create commerce in order to regulate it”?…that the only argument by the Obama Administration this far is that health care is “unique” and therefore exempt from the constitution?…that Justice Samuel Alioto sort of mocked that argument in equating forcing Americans to buy health insurance to forcing them to buy a burial policy since we are all going to die anyway and that would be a way of distributing the cost of burial to everyone?…that it is looking like we will not have to vote out Obamacare because as asserted it will likely be struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court?

IS T TRUE that several of our readers have asked if we could get our hands on a group picture of the management core of Earthcare Energy?…that no one seems to have seen a picture with Mr. Ken Haney the founder and chairman standing with CEO Stephen Geldmacher and president Erwin Washington?…that we agree that it would be appropriate for the people of Evansville to start to get familiar with these gentlemen so we can wish them good fortune when we see them around town?…that as they said in “The Hunger Games”, “may the odds be forever in your favor”?