Overview Of Our Unscientific But Trendy “Readers Poll”

17

Overview Of Our Unscientific But Trendy “Readers Poll”

We are fascinated with the results of our unscientific but trendy “Readers Poll” we have had up for the past several days. Our readers chose Russell G. Lloyd, Sr as the mayor who did the best job, and that is not hard to understand. The handsome and extremely likable Republican was a big change from his three-term predecessor, Frank McDonald, Sr. who was a Democrat. We find it interesting that Mayor Frank McDonald, Sr was a close second choice for best mayor to the senior Mayor Lloyd.  Both men have sons who followed in their fathers’ footsteps.

Mayor McDonald,  Sr. created a smooth-running political machine, first as Vanderburgh County Sheriff for eight years and then as mayor for twelve years. The McDonald machine did little to conceal the practice of nepotism and  political patronage that was a hallmark of the tight grip he held on his party, and in later years spilled over into the Republican party. Those were the days of the “Two percent Club” when City Hall workers were expected to pledge 2% of their gross annual salaries to the party who held the department where they worked. It was a good idea for workers and all of their families to show up to help with re-election campaigns, too.  Bottom line, he was the mayor whom made USI a reality.

We wonder if some of the reader approval for the senior McDonald and Lloyd might be nostalgia for better days here in Evansville. Chrysler was gone, but we still had Whirlpool and the City’s budgets were balanced. Bonding capacity and capital improvements didn’t cause the anxiety among the electorate that they now do, and mot people just accepted that there were going to be some questionable governmental practices. It was politics, after all.

Our two least popular mayors come as no surprise. Democrat Mike Vandeveer followed Russ Lloyd Sr. in a seemingly competent administration, that worked to begin neighborhood and downtown revitalization efforts. Unfortunately, things were not what they appeared to be. It became necessary for Vandeveer to resign abruptly during his second term, under a cloud of allegations of serious impropriety on his part. The mayor who received the fewest votes was our current City Controller, Russell G. Lloyd Jr. We wonder if his dreams of a baseball stadium on the riverfront and the millions of dollars he wasted trying to make that happen are the sole reason for the distaste our readers have for his administration, or if some of it is because of the budgetary difficulties that Evansville is suffering at the hands of Lloyd Winnecke, his current boss.

The junior Mayor McDonald and Jonathon Weinzapfel finished in the middle of the pack. McDonald II presided over three reasonably uneventful terms and left office unscathed. Weinzapfel is most remembered for the construction of the Ford Center and the events leading up to the unsuccessful bid for office made by the late, well regarded Rick Davis.

We were most surprised at the dismal showing made by the present Mayor Lloyd Winnecke. Only 11% of CCO readers voted for him as the best Mayor of Evansville. That comes as a shock in light of the fact that he won a landslide victory over Gail Reicken just seven months ago. We wonder if this stems from a bad case of “buyer’s remorse” on the part of voters who have a growing concern about the City’s solvency, or if the victory is a reflection on the badly-run campaign waged by the Democrats and Mrs. Reicken, We suspect that it may be a combination of the two.

There is a trend that we see in the evaluation of each mayor’s performance, and that is the more fiscally conservative and “down to earth” the mayor, the better he is liked by our readers. We don’t believe those voting in our non-scientific poll are unusual. Those qualities seem to be more important to the opinions of of our readers than party affiliation or other qualities. Potential candidates for office, take note!

Todays “Readers Poll” question is:  Who do you feel was the most effective President of Evansville City Council in recent years?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

17 COMMENTS

  2. McDonald Sr cleaned up downtown. He got rid of the gambling joints, houses of ill repute and gay bars. downtown. Most people do not remember what a wide open town this was in the 50s. He also got rid of the poor folks that lived along pidgin creek. There is a whole history of Evansville and downtown that you do not hear about from our local historians. Big franks clean up efforts probably did as much to kill downtown as the malls.

    • This was a ‘wide open’ town well before the ’50s. The oil boom in Southern Illinois was largely responsible. The blackjack layout seen in casinos to this day was born here, sired in one of Evansville’s many illegal horserooms around 1910 (Scarne’s Complete Guide To Gambling ©1961 p. 315) .

      Big Frank should have left the whorehouses and gambling joints alone, we’d still have a thriving downtown. It was unnatural what he did, went against Evansville’s nature. Big Sr. was a 10 year sheriff of Vanderburgh County and managed a Wood’s Drug Store in the ’30s.

      • “Scarne’s Complete Guide To Gambling ©1961 p. 315”!! Wow, I didn’t know it existed, but now I want to read it. I absolutely agree about leaving the bookies and brothels alone. We would have a “draw” for conventions in spite of the hideous climate and Bee Slough, and we wouldn’t need to build a hotel. Private developers would have done everything we needed.

      • Frogeye Frank let a few of his buddies keep up some quiet operations. The Social Bar was a good place to bet a few horses, drink a couple of beers, shoot some pool, and eat some good fried chicken. It was owned by Elmo Henson Sr. His son, Junior was best buds with police chief Charlie Gash. The Social Bar got torn down when they built 41, but I hear the Hensons got some real money out of the deal. People always said Junior was tied in with the mob. Even Billy Bolin doesn’t hang out with mobsters.

      • The oil men may have opened things up here, but the factory guys liked to have a good time on Saturday night, too. We had a whole lot of factories that paid really good.
        All Frank did about the whores was spread them out all over town. A few of them quit and went into politics.

    • You make some very valid points about the first Mayor McDonald and his influence on this river town. I think the single worst thing that McDonald did to downtown was build the new City Hall smack in the middle of Main Street and cut off traffic flow through the “happening” part of town.

      If the Ossenberg brothers hadn’t gone out and recruited the struggling young attorney and Kennedy look-alike, and newcomer to town Russ Lloyd, Sr., to run on the Republican ticket for Mayor, Evansville would be a very different place today. Ray Becker, Jim Swonder, Chick Shively, and the Shetlers joined in and closed ranks around Russell, and a local star was born. Then, Bill Brooks, who McDonald hand-picked to be his successor, lost the papers listing his platform at the newspaper offices. We had a real newspaper then, so they published it as soon as a reporter found it under his desk.

      The Republicans got together a committee immediately, and created a positive and forward looking platform that made the voters believe that the future of Evansville would be brighter under the leadership of the likable Lloyd than the banker, Brooks, and the rest is history. It’s a shame that Mike Vandeveer dropped the ball so monumentally, because I really believed that the city could survive the loss of manufacturing and thrive until then. When Mike left office the way he had to, he threw the door wide open to the McClintock era in local politics.

      As we fell into the hands of the second-generation “leaders” who were non-charismatic bean-counters with little sense other than a sense of entitlement we lost out on the innovation that would have kept this city going forward.

      The moral to the story: Maybe we should look for some baggage-free new blood to run this town instead of the second and third generations who we are allowing to rule. The silver spooners need to go, folks.

  3. Big Frank did nothing but run a political machine. Let’s list his accomplishments:

    Scratched the “Civic Circle” in favor of blocking Main Street off, effectively killing access into the downtown.

    Sat by and allowed INDOT to design US 41 at ground level, chock full of stoplights. Despite repeated pleas from the public and his own City Engineer to get this highway built properly. At least Winnecke when faced with the same INDOT corner cutting on the 41-Lloyd interchange, fought them until it was revised.

    Did nothing when I-64 was routed too far north of Evansville to provide any real benefit to the area residents on a daily basis. Moving it 15 miles south, and running it along the present day Lloyd would have killed two birds, saved millions that was spent 20 years later, and provided a real benefit to Evansville.

    Leveled much of the downtown without any real plan for redevelopment. The riverfront area in the late 60’s looked like a bomb went off. Did nothing to save the Grand Theater, which was by far the most beautiful theater in the city.

    Now, Frank Jr..12 years of complete nothing. I think the man slept through his entire time in city hall. Complete stagnation of our city.

    For those of you ridiculing Lloyd Jr for the baseball stadium, I would suggest taking a trip to Ft. Wayne’s Parkview Field. Not only is it a beautiful and enjoyable place to take in a ball game, the housing developments, lofts, etc that are being developed around the stadium are exactly what is needed here. Instead, we are stuck in Frontier League Hell with a semi-pro baseball team and a nightly beerstube.

    • You missed it by a long shot on I-64. The original plan for I-64 was for ut to follow U.S. 50 through Vincennes. Supported by Bob Green. McDonald Sr. successfully lobbied to move it sputh but had to compromise.to iits current location
      Yep, McDonald Sr. has the legacy of killing downtown with building the Civic Center to block Main Street.
      McDonald Jr renovated Roberts Stadium and Hartke Pool. Weinzapfel tore down Roberts Stadium as he knew it would be more successful than his namesake, The Jon.

      • And your’re correct anout McDonald Sr’s Highway 41 from Hell concept. Just imagine: a major highway with a traffic light so you can exit for a no longer existing BBQ restaurant!
        Mayor McClintock didn’t do so great with the 41/Lloyd interchange upgrade though. It doesn’t meet interstate standards (yoo small radius ramps) and should have eliminated the railroad crossing on 41 and incorporated an upgrade of the 41/Virginia Street interesction (pverpass like Lloyd/Green River Road – which is also needed at Lloyd/Red Bank and Lloyd/Burkhardt and Lloyd/Stockwell and Lloyd/Vann).

  4. There aren’t many baseball fans around here. If there were I figure the Otters would fill up Bosse Field.

  6. An “unscientific but trendy” poll? Seriously? Could not force myself to read further.

  7. Russ Lloyd Sr., and not one comment about him being Evansville’s version of Bill Clinton…

Comments are closed.