SHAME ON WHO?
BY GEORGE LUMLEY
Is the current and recent City Administration letting garbage pile up in the neighborhoods so they can promote special interest projects? I was recently talking to a minister who encouraged me in my mission but also explained to me that no mayor wants to be remembered as the mayor who took out the trash. Mayors have to have and strive for a project to put their name on, like a new downtown hotel. So yes, garbage piles are left in the neighborhoods and available funds are spent on special downtown projects.
Recently in the news is the 8 lot parcel located at 1007 West Maryland St. This major story made front page, Sunday edition of the Courier and Press. A nice article about a burnt out warehouse, the dangers posed to the neighborhood children and general dismay of neighboring residents having to look at a growing garbage heap in their neighborhood. Yes a growing garbage heap. As with most of these abandoned properties, which the city has many, they become the place to pitch that old mattress or tv.
The article focus is on the deadbeat businessman who owned the property before it became garbage. That is just water under the bridge. Shaming the owners of these zombie properties might be fun and interesting; however, it is not going to get them cleaned up. I have not seen it work yet. If there is an action to be had against a former owner it is usually for the cleanup cost and pushing the cleanup date out to future years is not going to help that case. The shame is on the Government Body ultimately responsible for the cleanup and hauling off the city’s garbage.
When does the city plan to haul this garbage off? According to the paper maybe next year. Well good at least this site has their attention. It is a larger site than most with eight lots rather than the usual 2 or three lot sight scattered around Evansville. Is this a major portion of Evansville’s blighted lots? No, this is just eight lots of the estimated hundreds.
The city will ultimately clean this up. Why not do it now? “We don’t have the funds in this year’s budget to do it†according to Ron Beane as quoted in the Courier Press article.
This property burned in October of last year. I am sure the city officials knew this would be a city cleanup project shortly after the fire. If the Mayor and his staff were interested in property values and the residents of this neighborhood they would have requested an additional appropriation from the council. The mayor has had no problem requesting appropriations for other special interest items.
I recently ran across a document published just two months ago by the U S Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Community Planning and Development titled National Stimulus Plan (NSP) production report by Grantee. It is like a report card of how cities spent their NSP grant money. Although this program started a few years back and ended for most recipients, Evansville program is still not closed out. I found Evansville on page 50.
The record shows sum of projected Demolitions 136, sum of actual Demolitions 86, remaining demolitions 50. Interesting, grant documents show this was a $3,735,204.00 grant. Do we still have funds or owe the government 50 demolitions on a grant where we spent the money but did not accomplish the goals?
I contacted the Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development and he said “we met all requirements of the grantâ€. Pushed for more info he said “It was a flexible program that resulted in new homes in the inner city and a couple of major rehabsâ€.  I don’t know what his definition of “inner city†is but it appears the funding that was targeted to help get rid of the garbage around the city was focused on subsidizing construction around Haney’s corner and Downtown.
I hear we have a $15 million dollar Main street project where the city has already bought a not so old but vacant CVS for close to half a million and plans to demo it for a parking lot. The city paid for the old Haney’s corner drug store and demolished it. The city bought two blighted properties, for around $400,000.00, at the 500 block of NW 4th street and then paid to demolish them. Cover photo of the NW 4th St property shows how downtown blight is handled. Buy the property at inflated prices and then tear it down. In the remaining neighborhoods the property has to fall down and then wait for years to be cleaned up. This property at 1007 W Maryland is a bargain in blight removal with no inflated purchase price. As with most properties that are ready for demolition, the owners are willing to give them away.
I think I see a pattern here. We have blighted, vacant, zombie structures in the neighborhoods and that’s good because we can get grants and approved appropriations for getting rid of it and then spend the funding on something else. It might be a bad thing to actually get rid of some of the garbage in the neighborhoods because it would be more difficult to get the approval for grants and appropriations for helping the neighborhoods. Is that what is happening to the $500,000 annual appropriation in the city budget? Does most of it go for buying and then demolishing commercial buildings at select locations and the regular neighborhoods are just out of luck?
If anyone should be shamed into cleaning up the garbage it is the public officials where the task has been relinquished. With Corporations, LLCs, LLPs, bankruptcy, and the simple fact that you cannot get blood out of a turnip, the executive, legislative and judicial branches have all left the city and county officials holding the garbage bag on this one. Evansville needs to quit just holding the bag and start making progress on hauling off the garbage. Let’s fix that. Ask the Mayor and County executives why Evansville/Vanderburgh County cannot afford to haul off its garbage.
Bravo, Mr. Lumley. Fantastic article !
Was the property at 1007 W Maryland St insured at the time of the fire? Did the “deadbeat” owner receive anything from the insurance company? What is the dollar amount of liens filed against this property?
There has been little to no effort to go after these situations. I remember when the plating company on division street sat derelict for so long. The owner was also said to have walked away from the property, but I noticed that there was a rather expensive outdoor advertising sign located on the property, so I went down the street towards the west to the next business that also had one of the signs on their property and, in conversation with the owner there, found out that the sign company was making lease payments to the property owners.
Since the plating company property had run up a large property tax debt, I called the City of Evansville and asked them why they did not seek to recover some of that debt by attaching the sign lease payments. The upshot was that they could have gone after the payments, but they lacked any desire to get it done.
These deadbeats names should go on a list, and before they are ever allowed to own more property or start a business in Evansville, or be a partner in a business in Evansville, they should have to sign an agreement to a schedule of payments for their old debt.
Good luck shaming the shameless. The Winnecke administration has taken things to a new low. They care nothing about anything but getting re-elected and churning properties at great profit to themselves and their insider cronies.
There was always a reason why Kelly Coures was kept out of local government, always allowed to nip around the edges of the circle but never allowed in … until now. A perfect fit for the vaunted Winnecke administration.
It is true. After all, isn’t “hauling off the garbage” one of city government’s primary functions?
From the looks of the improvised parking nearby. Heck, someone should charge for the daily parking under the roid depressway, a couple of bucks a day per vehicle, then throw the funding into hauling off some of the trash from abandoned and blighted properties around town.
I’ve always wondered who parks under the Lloyd daily. Does anyone know where these people work?
SHAME ON US
Thank you George
For laying bare – the truth
shame on us for not standing up
to the shrewish leadership
of our beloved Evansville
for while we dithered
they turned her
into a pitiful stinking dump
Thank you George
for standing up
Shame on us. …
Probably the best guest article I have EVER seen on here.
Bravo to the writer for the courage, expertise, and the phenomenal amount of time, effort, and research that went into developing such an excellent dissertation.
I certainly hope that the “powers that be” read this and give it the proper review and thought process that should be demanded of any elected or appointed official who this article is related to.
And bravo as well to the CCO for encouraging such an excellent author to write such an in-depth article for your site. Well done!
I am with you Classy. Print out this article and send it to all “powers that be” with a return receipt requested to make sure it was received. This author is on it. He wants to make a difference and is working hard against a huge brick wall. This system of making money for the real estate agents and “owners” is a piece of crap.
The Real Garbage is the Smug “Movers and Shakers” that run this town,
as this expose reveals,–thanks to it’s Contemptible Leadership, –Evansville is a verifiable Dump.
Bravo Mr. Lumley!
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