Stockton, CA Went Bankrupt: Is Your City Next?

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3 COMMENTS

  1. The drought has dried up all the money trees but, elected officials still pull from the tree. Lets build another park (Robert’s Park) and pass on the sewer problems on to the next administration.

  2. This video should be required viewing for anyone who is contemplating casting a vote in this fall’s election.

    I hope the CCO keeps a permanent link up the website connecting to this video so that everyone who visits here from now until the election can see where we are headed.

    Not mentioned in this video is that Stockton built a new arena in 2005. The city of Stockton has over twice the population of Evansville and only payed half of what Evansville did for the Ford Center.

    A major factor in Stockton’s downfall was lack of transparency of the city’s finances. Two factions are to blame there: the city for not openly publishing and promoting all the vital financial data, and the public for its apathy in not following what the city was doing with public tax dollars.

    Yes, the Stockton city council did sign off on all of the debt, but they want us to believe that they did not know what they were signing or were deliberately misinformed. The latter, of course, is a criminal act, the former shows they had no business holding a seat on the council.

    Before you start grinning and offer that such a thing could never happen here, just how much do you know about the city of Evansville’s finances during the 8 years of the Weinzapfel administration?

    I believe that the administration prior to Weinzapfel’s was the last one to publish a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the city of Evansville. No such report was published for any of the 8 years of the Weinzapfel administration! Why was that? Was stealth government the order of the day in that administration?

    What would a real audit of the cost to taxpayers of the Ford Center uncover? What went on behind the scenes concerning the purchasing of property down there, including the Executive INN and its demolition.

    Why was Evansville’s infrastructure left to rot for 8 years while a handful of well connected businessmen made millions on public/private projects of dubious value to the taxpayers?

    Evansville needs to clean their own house before they go looking for other local elected governments to conquer. The way I see it, voting for this consolidation plan would deprive Evansville’s leaders, most of whom were present for the 8 years of the Weinzapfel administration, of the satisfaction of seeing their handiwork of the last 8 years come to fruition.

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