As Winnecke Strikes Again, Only One Councilman Takes A Stand

A zebra can't change its stripes and you can't teach a dog new tricks, even if you spend $8 million on a frivolous park for it. This past week, we have seen Lloyd Winnecke use the same bush league tactics towards the new hotel project that he used towards Roberts Stadium. For those who have seen the movie "Ground Hog Day," you may begin to feel like the days in Evansville are beginning to repeat themselves like in the movie.

Not only are we seeing Winnecke go back on his word to bring a transparent government to the civic center, we are also seeing the same closed door policy that he used to demolish Roberts Stadium. It has now been over 6 months since Winnecke announced that he wanted to demolish Roberts Stadium and we STILL don't know if the mayor did any research towards a mid-sized arena, who put the falsified page 13 (known as "general conclusions" despite the general task force having no idea where it came from) in the report, and why it wasn't removed. You have a better chance of parting the Red Sea than finding out any of those answers.

On the day that Judge D'Amour, whose wife just so happens to have been the campaign coordinator for Winnecke when he ran for mayor, ruled against Alan Brille and refused to even address the fact that the task force report was filled with not just errors but with misleading sections and information that clearly isn't true, I said that his decision would be the green light for these same tactics to happen again...

http://rememberrobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2012/09/was-justice-blind-in-roberts-stadium.html

As usual, most city officials brushed off this notion and refused to believe that we would see more actions take place behind closed doors. After this past week, their notion just doesn't hold water. Like Roberts Stadium, the Executive Inn got a raw deal with the city. First, we were led to believe that if we just knocked down half of the building we could refurbish it and use it to compliment the new arena. Then, once Browing Investments turned over the keys after finally deciding to call it quits on remodeling the Executive Inn, the Kunkel Group was rebuffed in their efforts to use what was left of the existing structure.

In the end, the city couldn't have screwed up the outcome any more than they did. Even to this day, we still have no hotel, a sky walk to nowhere, and an old parking garage lot that resembles a landfill. Of course, none of this would have happened if Weinzapfel would have picked the correct location for the arena that didn't involve the Executive Inn in the first place.

The Executive Inn debacle is just one of many times we have watched our mayor and our city officials make the wrong decision when given a wide array of choices. Some other notable decisions include...

1. The previous ECVB, which is basically of the same mindset of the current ECVB, chose the Roberts Stadium lot instead of Kleymeyer Park for their ball fields project. Instead of rejuvenating an area that is in need of repair while taking advantage of Bosse Field, the third oldest active ballpark, we ended up with a drag out fight between the ECVB and city residents over a lot that has ZERO baseball history and ZERO advantages over the Kleymeyer Park lot. What made it even worse was the fact that city residents were never given a choice, it was always what location Dunn picked, then city residents could voice their views.

2. The Chamber, mayor, past mayor, and INDOT choosing the wrong path for I-69. If you look at this map (http://deis.i69indyevn.org/DEIS/Summary/all_new_.jpg), you will see that the current plan is easily the worst possible plan as it requires more land being destroyed, a higher impact on the environment, and a more expensive route to construct. This road could have easily done US 41/I-70 OR it could have done US 41 and then state road 231 or state road 54 just north of Vincennes. This would have had a greater impact on residents living north of us on US 41, it would have left extra funds for high speed rail to accompany this interstate, and it would have prevented the need to plow through forests leading up to Bloomington. But in the end, Evansville city officials weren't going to be happy until they had it their way and the worst route of all, which still isn't finished, was the one chosen. So much for everyone working together.

3. Weinzapfel chooses the wrong location for the Ford Center. Since the city decided to rebuild the Centre on its current lot, a decision that is now proven to be the wrong decision given that the Executive Inn has been demolished and the rest of the entertainment complex is around Aztar, it was a foregone conclusion that the arena would have to be somewhere close by instead of further west by Aztar. However, that didn't mean that the current lot was the only option. First, we watched the city fight D-Patrick for what was the best lot. Given reports from both sides, it is still unclear if the city could have won if they would have stuck with this plan. Unfortunately, they didn't and instead of choosing better locations like the back 40 or going parallel down Main Street, the city choose to go perpendicular to Main Street which required demolition of both the buildings on Main Street and half of the Executive Inn and is now land locked. The sad part is, it all could have been avoided by proper planning.

4. Winnecke decides to ignore all those interested in saving Roberts Stadium and decides on a dog park plan  that he got while in Arizona visiting his daughter. Obviously, this was the worst decision of the four because it was so blatant that he already knew he was going to knock down Roberts Stadium, yet he choose to waste everyone's time on the task force just so he could use them as political pawns. Of all the political issues and events I have been involved with, this was by far the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.

So now, you can pretty much imagine why Winnecke has decided to play hide and go seek with the hotel project. As of right now, we are down to three finalists. Although all 3 of these finalists have submitted their plans to the city, no one in the public has any idea..

1. What the proposals include
2. What the renderings look like
3. What the financial contributions from each bidder are

And not only does the city at large have no idea what is going on, apparently Winnecke has decided to meet individually with the city council which is out of the view of the public. Despite this obviously being bad public  policy, only one of the 9 council members is taking a stand against Winnecke- 6th Ward Councilman Al Lindsey.

http://city-countyobserver.com/2013/01/16/letter-to-the-editor-regarding-closed-door-meetings-councilman-al-lindsey/

Not only has councilman Lindsey been very vocal against the current hotel fiasco, he has also taken a stand for Roberts Stadium numerous times...

http://www.14news.com/story/19779285/some-city-council-members-not-on-board-for-roberts-demolition?clienttype=printable

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/oct/15/s/

We all owe Al a HUGE thank you for the consistent stand he has taken for both Roberts Stadium and government transparency. As long as Winnecke feels he has the green light to keep on doing what he is doing, we will need to keep electing people like Al Lindsey to the city council so that these type of tactics are kept in check. I am very proud that he is taking a stand while the other 8 council members have chosen to be puppets and sheep who lack any sort of independent thoughts and actions.

The day after the page 13 controversy broke, I received a phone call from Lloyd Winnecke. He told me that he put me on the task force as a courtesy. So I guess the fact that I had worked on Roberts Stadium for over 2 years did not matter, he was just putting me on the task force because he felt like being a nice guy.

The fact that he has not reached out to Roberts Stadium supporters after his announcement in any way, shape, or form to see if there was some way the city could keep smaller parts of Roberts Stadium as a monument just proves that we were put on the task force so that Winnecke could give some credibility to a task force that was never going to be allowed to come up with the best solution.

And now, just this past week, Winnecke is claiming that his private meetings with council members are a courtesy. That's right, it's a courtesy for the mayor to tell the council his selection behind closed doors instead of letting the entire public see the three plans, evaluate them, and then choose for themselves which is the best. With all of these "courtesy" actions being taken by the mayor, I guess it's Winnecke's World we just live in it.

Moving forward, we must use what happened to Roberts Stadium as an example if we are going to be able to get anything out of the Roberts Stadium fiasco. If we keep allowing tactics like closed door meetings take place, we will have gained nothing from the movement to save Roberts Stadium.

So today, I urge you to contact Al Lindsey and thank him for taking a stand. I also urge you to email the mayor's office and tell them enough is enough. Let's make sure that what happened to Roberts Stadium never happens again!