Was Justice Blind In The Roberts Stadium Lawsuit? Not Exactly

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For those of you like me who have always had very little trust in the justice system, today is yet another day that should confirm your suspicions.

Earlier today, Judge Richard D'Amour released his decision in the Roberts Stadium lawsuit, and to be quite honest about it, we mights as well have had Larry Steenberg or Lloyd Winnecke himself making this ruling.

Inside the report, which is available at most media outlets online, the judge claims that he had no jurisdiction over most of the case. So basically, he denied the city's request to have the lawsuit thrown out based on jurisdiction only to drag everyone through months of litigation and come to the conclusion that there was basically nothing we could argue against the city because it was out of the judge's reach. You have to wonder why this was done.

Next, I have read the ruling several times and nowhere in this ruling do I see anything about the validity of the 13th page found in the Roberts Stadium Task Force Report. The only thing I see is where the judge claimed that the Parks Board's decision was in good faith and consistent with law which I fail to understand given that one member claimed the task force report "reads good" when it was changed in a fraudulent manner after the final task force meeting while another member claimed the pumps have been running since 1956 (1990 is the correct answer). Not to mention, another member claimed that no one from the private sector was interested in Roberts right after Brille himself offered to buy it even though Roberts has been on the market 0 seconds, 0 minutes, 0 hours, and 0 days.

So here we have yet another step in the process and no one, and I mean no one, has proven or removed the page that was put into the report which has forever tainted the task force I sat on. And let me be very clear about this, I am not arguing about a grammar or spelling error. What the fraudulent page 13 did was give our city, our media, and our government officials a completely false impression of the situation at Roberts Stadium.

It is not cheaper to build a new Roberts Stadium, it is not better to focus on maintenance costs over start-up costs when the difference is measured in millions, and it is was not a general conclusion that something for everyone was the theme of the meetings or that it meant that a park satisfied that notion best. Not only are all of those beliefs false, they WERE NEVER DISCUSSED. Why? Because the mayor himself told us that we WERE NOT TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION! Yet if you read this page in the task force report, and then read the media reports that used it as the bases for their stories, this is the picture you will be given.

Many supporters of the mayor have argued that "he didn't have to do the task force." On the face of that argument they are 100% true, but here's the problem- The mayor DID DO the task force, and he did it for his own benefit so that he could claim that he gave a good faith effort. Although the task force was non-binding, no one on the committee has a right (at least they shouldn't have) to alter the report with blatantly inaccurate information that is designed to intentionally mislead the public while branding it "General Conclusions." We don't know who did this, but we do know that it was done. Is this report fraud? False Advertisement? False pretenses? Take your pick!

I don't know about you, but it would seem to me that today's ruling should have been simple yet a lot different at the same time. It should have been the following...

1. Roberts Stadium Task Force Report thrown out based on grounds of inaccuracy and deception.
2. New report ordered as indemnification.
3. New report must be independent and non-biased.
4. While the new report is being assembled, a temporary injunction is ordered.
5. After new report is released, mayor and parks board can do whatever is in their jurisdiction to do.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Given that there was no ruling on the task force report itself, I find it to be nothing short of despicable that Lloyd Winnecke would go on television today and claim that it's "a good day for the city" and that today's ruling "validates the process." When Lloyd proves his task force's report and explains why it was altered AFTER our final task force meeting, that is when he can begin to gain a little credibility with his task force's report. Until then, he has still failed to tell the truth about the condition of the arena, the interested tenants in the arena, and the true relationship between Roberts Stadium and the Ford Center.

Of all the horrendous things that have come out of the Roberts Stadium situation, today's ruling has to rank up near the top. Why? Because this ruling has set a dangerous precedent for our city. It has sent a huge message to any citizen who sits on a city run task force that your city government can advertise to you that they will give a good faith effort, use your name to give the task force credibility, and then insert pages into the final report that say anything they want them to say while labeling them "general conclusions" without your approval or anyone else's approval. And we wonder why our city is in the shape it's in?

And it now appears that there is no court, no government body, and no member of any organization period who can stop the government from creating what is basically a controlled red herring. Is this the kind of government and judicial system that we want our country to run off of? That is a question that our city government and citizens need to sit down and think about long and hard because as long as we elect people like Lloyd Winnecke, these type of reports are going to keep happening.

Given how lopsided the ruling was, one would have to wonder why Judge D'Amour would allow this suit to move forward only to rule that he had no jurisdiction while failing to address if he thought the city misled the Parks Board via the task force report. Was there a conflict for Judge D'Amour BEFORE the start of this lawsuit? I'll let you decide.

It turns out, Judge D'Amour's wife, Holly D'Amour, was quite a huge supporter of Lloyd Winnecke. So much so that she can be found on THREE PAGES in Winnecke's campaign report...

(Pages 66, 90, and 114)

http://city-countyobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Winnecke-Campaign-Pre-Election-Report-Oct-14-2011.pdf

Even worse is this article...

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/jan/22/winnecke-tells-600-evansville-needs-laser-focused/?print=1

"Winnecke's campaign coordinator is Holly D'Amour, wife of Superior Court Judge Richard D'Amour."

So we have a judge whose wife was the campaign coordinator for the mayor and that's not a conflict of interest? Did Judge D'Amour disclose this to Alan Brille during the lawsuit? Why didn't he pass this case on to a judge who had no conflicts of interest in this case even if that required a change of venue?

It now appears that no matter where Roberts Stadium supporters go to seek justice, they will always be confronted with someone who has ties to Lloyd Winnecke, whether it's Judge D'Amour, Roberts Stadium Task Force Director Larry Steenberg who supported Winnecke's campaign as well, or the Parks Board who has a member who was appointed by Winnecke and at least one other member who can be found on Winnecke's campaign finance report.

Was today's decision the right decision? The answer to that question is the same answer to the other question- Is justice really blind?

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