In response to Brandon Bartlett’s report from 9/21, “Evansville Mayor, political attack could affect hundreds of vendors, risk some city service” and John Martin’s article on 9/22, “City officials: Bills not being paid because of transfer delay.â€
There is a crisis going on in Evansville and it is manifesting with the Mayor asking the City Council to transfer funds from the Rainy Day fund and Riverboat fund to make sure the city can pay its bills. For the past three and half years the mayor has played loose with the city’s purse strings running down the city’s reserve funds and putting the city half a billion dollars into debt. He says that the City Council is to blame because they pass the budget. The simple fact is that regardless of what the budget is the Mayor’s job to control spending so the city doesn’t spend more than it takes in. Next, he says the city does not have enough revenue and that he can’t increase revenue because he has to work with property tax caps. I helped pass that law in Indianapolis in 2010 on the second resolution for this exact reason, to keep mayors who can’t control spending under control. The Mayor is starting to sound more and more like a tax and spend republican than the fiscal conservative he would like to be.
Evansville needs a mayor that will fix our financial problems; who will produce a spending plan and then monitor revenue so we can stick to it, paying down our debt and rebuilding city reserves. The Rainy Day fund is for emergencies and the Riverboat money is for capital improvements like helping the fire department replace its aging trucks or fixing a deteriorated roof on the Victory Theater or replacing a worn out tram at the zoo. It’s all about priorities and fixing our city’s finances. This would be my top priority as mayor.
Gail Riecken is running for Mayor of Evansville and is a former Evansville City Council-woman, Evansville Parks Director, and a current member of the Indiana State House of Representatives. She is a lifelong Evansville resident, has been married for 47 years, and has 2 children and 3 grandchildren.
