(city-countyobserver.com; PLEASE support this great site)(Note: This is part 1 of a 5 part series this week. I will be doing a post for Lon Walters on Tuesday, Stephanie Brinkerhoff- Riley on Wednesday, Al Lindsey on Thursday, and Dr. Adams on Friday. Also, while the city clerk position has no bearing on Roberts Stadium, PLEASE vote JD Strouth for Clerk!)
It seems like just yesterday when I was filming the show Newsmakers with Mizell Stewart for PBS/WNIN and the Evansville Courier & Press as a cameraman and our scheduled guest was mayoral candidate Rick Davis. Yet, it's been almost 11 months since that episode was filmed and I still haven't forgotten it.
Before the airing of this show, the battle to save Roberts Stadium was an uphill battle steeper than Reitz Hill. No politician, and I mean no politician, was willing to go out on a limb and step in front of David Dunn's ball fields plan which was barreling down on Roberts Stadium.
I made my opposition to the destruction of Roberts Stadium known to the Vanderburgh County Council the month before as well as my vision that the ball fields should be constructed at Kleymeyer Park instead with a vintage MLB ballpark theme. The response I got was cricket noise.
I then proceeded to email the Evansville City Council. Of them all, only Dr. Dan Adams voiced his support for Roberts Stadium but his hands were tied as the City Council was left out of the ball fields political cycle at the time. The other council members didn't want anything to do with Roberts Stadium and took full advantage of not being in the process to avoid taking a stand for Roberts Stadium- That was truly pathetic!
My last steps were to email the EVCB and the County Commissioners. The EVCB was a colossal waste of time as the last thing Dunn was going to was give a tiny bit of consideration for an arena in his way, much less email me back trying to justify his plan. As for the 3 County Commissioners, only Commissioner Winnecke emailed me and agreed to meet with me (I still appreciate his kind gesture), but he took the position that Roberts Stadium should be demolished.
But since the airing of Newsmakers with guest Rick Davis, we have been rolling with momentum. If you go to the 13:45 mark of the show, which is only 29 seconds from the exact midpoint, you will hear Rick himself explain his support for Roberts Stadium...
http://video.wnin.org/video/1681067634
Shortly after the filming, I received this email from Mr. Davis...
"Dear Jordan: Wow. I just read your blog! I'm very humbled. I really appreciate the kind words you have shared with the Facebook and blogosphereworlds. I don't know if you knew this or not, but my first gig out of college (actually, when I was still in high school) was as a sportswriter. I covered 90%high school sports, but I had my occasional UK, U of L, and IU football and/or basketball game. I even covered a couple of Colts games back when Jeff George and Eric Dickerson were on the team (in other words, the WORST years to be a Colts fan). I wish you well with your sports management career.
Getting back to Roberts, I have always said it's a good thing Michelangelo wasn't from Evansville. We have a very bad habit of tearing down beautiful, paid off buildings. "Sistine Chapel, oh, it's old, tear it down and put in a parking garage. St. Peter's Basilica, oh, it's old, tear it down, put in a pawn shop."Now, don't get me wrong ... Roberts isn't the Sistine Chapel. But there is value there. And tearing it down would be doing away with millions of dollars worth of taxpayer funded materials; as well as priceless memories. Have a wonderful week,and Happy New Year! Rick. "
How many candidates and/or politicians can you think of that would be willing to stand this bold, this daring, and this risky? As I look through the history of Evansville, I can only find 3. They are Benjamin Bosse who fought to get Bosse Field built and even went door-to-door to collect funds to build UE, Hank Roberts who was only a one term mayor because he was willing to sacrifice his political career so that Roberts Stadium could be built, and Russ Lloyd Jr. who despite knowing that he would be criticized for trying to build a ballpark did so anyways as he knew it was right. He even laid out an entire Downtown Master plan in 2001 and in 2002 laid out a master plan to connect Garvin Park with Kleymeyer Park.
Those are the types of candidates we need in office. They only come around every once in a while so we cannot miss these opportunities when they present themselves. I guarantee you with a 110% faith behind me that if we don't elect Rick Davis as mayor, we will NEVER see a candidate like this for at least another 15-20 years.
We cannot afford to wait decades and decades and decades to turn this sinking ship R.M.S Evansville around. While the Ford Center is nice, if you drive through Downtown Evansville, you will see an area crying out for help. If you drive through the neighborhoods around Evansville, you will see the same thing. And if you drive past Roberts Stadium, you will a grand and legendary facility just begging you to elect Rick Davis so that it can come back to life and prosper once more.
When are we going to take a stand like Rick Davis did for Roberts Stadium and for our city as a whole? The time is now as we can no longer afford to wait and play politics with our dying city. We only get one chance to turn around this town, let's not let it go to waste.
IT'S TIME TO PICK RICK DAVIS FOR MAYOR!
(www.pickrickdavis.com)
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