As we wait patiently for the final days of the current administration to wind down and give way to Mayor-Elect Lloyd Winnecke's transparent government and futuristic vision, we are watching the Vanderburgh County Democratic Central Committee take what will hopefully be their final shots at out goal of maintaining and preserving our valuable sports facilities and parks.
Although I am very fortunate and satisfied with the political support we have received from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from all sides of the political spectrum, the Vanderburgh County Democratic Central Committee and those closely associated with it are no friend to Roberts Stadium or the Kleymeyer Park, Garvin Park, and Bosse Field district.
It is important to understand just how infamous this organization is. Nicknamed "The Machine," the DCC has been around for quite awhile. In the process, it has chewed up and spit out politician after politician who entered the political arena with weakened morals, ethics, and goals. It is chiefly responsible for Evansville obtaining the nickname, "Little Chicago." As we watch our town suffer from a brain drain of epic proportions, the DCC has used this as fuel to keep their machine turning.
Luckily, the days of this machine are slowly coming to an end. Thanks to the hard work of Rick Davis and the City-County Observer, the DCC is finally being exposed for who they are. Since Rick defeated machine candidate Troy Tornatta for the Democrat nomination for mayor, many other Democrats have come out against the DCC including 3 who will serve on next year's Evansville City Council.
Being in a weakened state of power, the DCC seeks to push their agenda through various Democrat (and sometimes Republican) officials and office holders in a very smooth, but calculated, way. Worst of all, it has been obvious since day 1 that the DCC wants to destroy Roberts Stadium and maintain the Kleymeyer Park, Garvin Park, and Bosse Field district in a state of despair.
First Mayor Weinzapfel came out in support of demolishing Roberts Stadium...
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/nov/23/evansville-visitors-bureau-reduces-ball-fields-bud/
"Dunn said the visitors bureau’s new budget assumes that the city will pay for the demolition of Roberts Stadium, which is estimated to cost $1.5 million. Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel said last week that the city would look to pay for that expense out of its 2012 budget, possibly by using Casino Aztar as the revenue source.
Weinzapfel reasoned that the cost of keeping Roberts standing but unused — which is estimated to top $300,000 a year — would exceed the cost of demolition after the passage of six years."
Then, DCC Chairman Mark Owen said that Kleymeyer is unsuitable for the ball fields project due to it smelling from the landfill beneath it. Immediately after he told me that, I issued a Kleymeyer Park Sniff Challenge...
http://saverobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2011/05/take-kleymeyer-park-sniff-challenge.html
Out of all of the viewers and fans of this blog that participated in this challenge, ZERO reported smelling anything from the landfill.
So now, with just a few days left before the DCC relinquishes most of its power to future Evansville leaders such as Al Lindsey, Dan Adams, Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley, and Lloyd Winnecke, the DCC has decided to take yet another jab at preventing Kleymeyer Park from growing.
Last Sunday, the City-County Observer said the following...
http://city-countyobserver.com/2011/12/18/is-it-true-december-18-2011/
"IS IT TRUE that during the last couple of weeks several members of the Mole Nation along with non affiliated civic leaders have told the City County Observer that the $18 Million Wesselman – Roberts Ball Fields project is being prepared to raise its head again in 2012?…
…that local visionary Mr. Jordan Baer is absolutely full of ideas and even had a very unique Ball Fields idea that would make Evansville’s Ball Fields if they ever materialize a very attractive and memorable place for kids to have tournaments?"
First of all, I would like to thank the City-County Observer for supporting both my Kleymeyer Park and Roberts Stadium initiatives ( which I believe should be packaged together to save on costs), and I appreciate their willingness to embrace this once in a lifetime opportunity.
With that being said, apparently the DCC has decided to speak once more through one of their members. This time, it was Vanderburgh County Surveyor Bill Jeffers (disguised as Soon2B and NDKnow) who was one of the 23 Democrats to unify behind Connie Robinson...
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/oct/27/no-headline---ev_demswewighin/?partner=yahoo_feeds
You would think the DCC would pick someone that wasn't a surveyor yet failed to realize that urban sprawl causes obesity, but then again I don't think anyone questions that they have been hit the hardest in Evansville by the brain drain.
What is his primary beef with building the ball fields at Kleymeyer? A stoplight! That's right, we would be better served by placing the ball fields at Roberts Stadium because a stoplight on 1st Avenue would be too much. Even though...
1. We would be placing the ball fields next to the third oldest active ballpark in the U.S
2. We would have the opportunity to design the fields to look like the following: http://www.bigleaguedreams.com/replica-fields
3. That company, if we went with them, builds their fields taxpayer free and requires no government funds for maintenance: http://www.bigleaguedreams.com/corporate/park-development
4. We have the opportunity to "green" the area by preventing Kleymeyer Park's methane gas from getting into the air, AND we could use this gas to generate electricity: http://saverobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2010/11/red-rover-red-rover-please-send-epa-on.html
5. We would be paying tribute to Don Mattingly who played youth baseball at this park in Garvin Park
6. We would help get the Otters out of the red as we would have the opportunity to play the championship games at Bosse Field. This would allow the Otters to increase the value of their ballpark advertisements while opening up their concession stands on non event days. It would also recruit women's softball tournaments who would like to play on the same field as the movie "A League of Their Own" was filmed on.
7. We would be revitalizing an area that truly is a "Recovery Zone."
Yet, a stoplight is the reason we should pay to demolish Roberts Stadium and allow the Kleymeyer Park, Garvin Park, and Bosse Field to struggle? What basis is there for this belief? Let's listen to some of the comments from the CCO website...
(The following (in bold) are some quotes that he gave us while the text not in bold is my response)
"Kleymeyer Park has serious access issues for a high traffic sports facility as anyone who drives southbound on 1st Avenue knows full well. Kleymeyer Park has its own flooding issues as well, although not at an elevation so low as Goebel or Hamilton’s currently unused floodway.
Roberts is the ideal location for a ballpark for the following reasons:
1. It now is a brownfield.
2. Development into a ballpark will green up a brownfield.
3. Development of an unused brownfield represents infill development.
4. Roberts Stadium is not and never has been a part of Wesselman Woods preserve.
5. The land surfaces at Roberts do not surface drain to Wesselman Woods and the storm water runoff from a ballpark on that property will not negatively impact Wesselman Woods.
6. The access and traffic flow into and out of Roberts Stadium property is much superior to Kleymeyer Park.
7. There are no flooding or regulatory floodway issues or environmental regulatory issues at Roberts Stadium property, and there are all those issues at Kleymeyer and Goebel."
2. Development into a ballpark will green up a brownfield.
3. Development of an unused brownfield represents infill development.
4. Roberts Stadium is not and never has been a part of Wesselman Woods preserve.
5. The land surfaces at Roberts do not surface drain to Wesselman Woods and the storm water runoff from a ballpark on that property will not negatively impact Wesselman Woods.
6. The access and traffic flow into and out of Roberts Stadium property is much superior to Kleymeyer Park.
7. There are no flooding or regulatory floodway issues or environmental regulatory issues at Roberts Stadium property, and there are all those issues at Kleymeyer and Goebel."
There is no doubt that a stoplight would have to be placed at the entrance off First along with a turn bay but I’m not sure why that would be any different than the Roberts Stadium lot. If you leave Roberts Stadium on the Boeke side you experience this same problem. In fact, at Wesselman Park, which is right next to the Roberts Stadium exit, they prohibit you from turning left leaving during certain hours (although I do it anyway)...
The main difference is, is that Kleymeyer doesn’t infringe upon any neighborhood roads which is why it would be met with little opposition.
Kleymeyer is surrounded by two roads with 4 lanes + room for turn bays and merge lanes. But there needs to be a pedestrian bridge constructed anyways over Pigeon to encourage visitors to park in Garvin as well (especially if we play the championship games at Bosse). This pushes development down Main Street. In 2002 the city undertook a master plan that called for this very thing.
As for the 7 points…
1. I guess technically you could call it a brownfield site although I find this to be a stretch at the current time. The city has not undertook the much needed step of forming a committee to try and reuse the venue. There are ample amount of tenants to place inside it that won’t compete with any other venues and will keep Roberts solvent. If the city turns a blind eye towards this, it will be their own fault and yes the lot would turn into a full blown brownfield.
2. The last thing we need is to “green up” something when our current parks have turned into wastelands. If we are going to green up something, it needs to be the downtown parks in the 2001 master plan that would successfully connect all sides of downtown Evansville as well as promote healthy transportation alternatives.
3. Meet mid-sized Roberts Stadium with its raised floor and room to upgrade the Hartke Pool complex. Putting a new growth park or ball field complex next to old growth Wesselman Woods will not work in harmony with each other.
4. Exactly, which is why we shouldn’t “expand Wesselman Woods” which would add new trees to 300 + year old trees. Not to mention, the neighbors have said loud and clear they don’t want to be disturbed by ball fields and they don’t want Wesselman Woods disturbed by it.
5. Why I don’t doubt that, it means nothing when you are proposing to put premier ball fields on a site that is landlocked and doesn’t come with any retail amenities. Kleymeyer Park is vastly superior to the Roberts lot. It comes with the potential of playing the championship games at Bosse Field which is already famous for women’s baseball (a good tie in to girls softball), it comes with Walther’s Golf N Fun, and it is just one road from our soon to be taxpayer funded hotel.
6. I talked about that above but another problem is even if you leave down division, you can’t go south on Stockwell and if you leave the entrance as is, you are gauranteeing at least one stoplight on the Lloyd which is clearly not the vision of the city.
7. Kleymeyer doesn’t flood where the ball fields would be. It does flood where the football field is which is why we should send EYFL to the old North field anyways.
Also, Kleymeyer comes with methane gas that can be converted to electricity and make the ball fields self-sufficient. With Wesselman, you better be prepared to pay the Vectren bill for years to come.
"Go to vanderburghgis.com and measure the distance from the intersection of Diamond and 1st, then tell me the feasibility of installing a stoplight for Kleymeyer entrance. On top of that, there are several commercial entrances curb cuts in the 1/4 mile directly across the street from Kleymeyer between the auto parts stores and the Pigeon Creek Bridge. So, there would have to be a new median extention and a new service road on the west side of 1st Avenue (read beaucoup dollars for right-of-way purchases, design fees, state permits, and construction costs)."
Since vanderburghgis.com is a pain to use, let's use wikimapia.com instead to measure the distance from Kleymeyer to Diamond..
Using their ruler, which is a rough estimate, we come away with the following measurements..
Diamond Avenue to Existing Kleymeyer Park entrance: 951 feet
Diamond Avenue to Existing Stoplight that enters the old Hills and Buy-Low plaza: 892 feet
Diamond Avenue to A Relocated Kleymeyer Park Entrance at the southern tip of the land: 1,455 feet
Therefore, we can say that both the existing Kleymeyer Park entrance as well as any entrance that would be south of the existing one (it really does need to be moved down) are farther away from Diamond Avenue than the already existing stoplight on 1st Avenue that is north of Diamond Avenue.
Also, it is important to understand that the entrance to Kleymeyer Park already exists. If a stoplight was put in at the current location, it would just be three way stop as there is no road across the street...
If the entrance were moved south, even less businesses would be affected...
This entrance would go right into Kleymeyer Park...
As far as 1st Avenue goes, there is plenty of room for expansion next to Kleymeyer Park...
"Roberts Stadium has adequate traffic infrastructure as is, and as has been proven over many decades, and without improvements to handle the lower traffic counts anticipated by ball fields.
I wager you that 99% of the property owners in the neighborhoods around Roberts Stadium bought their property AFTER Roberts was constructed and should be used to the traffic loads, which again will be lower for ball fields than for Roberts Stadium events."
Right. I guess the sign restricting left turns onto Boeke is a mirage especially since that intersection coming out of Wesselman Woods would see less traffic than the ball fields intersection. I guess it's ok to allow all of this traffic to turn in front of all of these homes on Boeke yet it is unacceptable to turn infront of businesses at 1st Avenue. If you went down Boeke after an event at Roberts Stadium, you will notice that they had parking lot police directing traffic. Without them, traffic would have been a nightmare.
"You seem to think the state will allow ingress and egress to Diamond from Kleymeyer. Won’t happen! Why do you think the Hills department store property across Diamond from Kleymeyer has sat vacant all these years after 4 failed anchor stores?"
If I remember correctly, Hills was a success for a long time before the company experienced financial hardships elsewhere. Also, where else is Venture and Shopko? If a connector was needed from Kleymeyer to Diamond, it would be a simple merge lane where traffic would already be up to speed not slowing down to exit at Hills.
Truthfully, we should not put a road to Diamond Avenue. If done correctly, we should be forcing most of our traffic into Garvin Park and the surrounding neighborhood. This will encourage development around Bosse Field and North Main Street, it will take advantage of our existing Greenway, and it will tie in Bosse Field and Garvin Park to our ball fields project. How do we do this? By building the bridge that was in the 2002 master plan!
"Regardless of what you think is needed or what pipe dreams you’ve read in non-binding master plans, there will not be a pedestrian bridge over Pigeon Creek between Kleymeyer and Garvin. What have you been smoking? The city has struggled to complete what little greenway trail we have now. Where do you think they’re going to get funds for a million dollar foot bridge across a major floodway requiring ungodly environmental regulatory compliance?"
No money for a pedestrian bridge? Really?...
http://www.14news.com/story/15051833/new-pedistrian-bridge-in-the-works-over-lloyd-expressway
This is the main reason why our city has lost faith in our government. In 2001 and 2002 we brought together community leaders, business leaders, and citizens from all over Evansville to together as a city to draw up a plan for Downtown Evansville and Garvin/ Kleymeyer Park. Now, we have bureaucrats bragging about these plans being non-binding and therefore easy and necessary to break if they decide the plan doesn't fit into their own ideas.
In regards to the pedestrian bridge connecting Garvin and Kleymeyer Parks, the bridge would be located at the highest point of both parks on the northeast side of Kleymeyer and the northwest side of Garvin...
I honestly have no idea how this bridge would be an environmental regulatory nightmare yet a bridge over the Lloyd Expressway will be simple to construct, obtain financing, and win political approval.
"Here’s a suggestion. Get your new mayoral crush to appoint you to the Area Plan Commission where you may learn the political and economic realities of all your daydreams."
What can I say, we have some real classy and professional winners as political leaders here in Evansville and Vanderburgh County. Economic realities? Didn't the ball fields at Roberts Stadium plan just get voted down because the Vanderburgh County Council didn't want to spend $17.5 million? Political realities? Didn't the ball fields at Roberts Stadium fail politically? Weren't the ECVB board members who drew those plans up forced to resign after a Christmas party?
Like Roberts Stadium, Kleymeyer Park is falling victim to half truths, lies, and manipulations. We are told that Kleymeyer Park is a dump and therefore the smell is driving residents away. That simple isn't the case. The lot is full every time a game is scheduled (I will be posting pictures of this in an upcoming post).
We are told that the ball fields are in terrible condition at Kleymeyer because the landfill underneath it makes the ground unlevel, yet Wesselman Park's ball fields were vastly more unlevel than Kleymeyer's today...
Wesselman...
Kleymeyer...
The most important thing you can take from the movement to save Roberts Stadium and the efforts to build the ball fields at Kleymeyer Park is the fact that this decision will be one of Evansville's biggest decisions it will need to make to date. The neighborhoods around Garvin and Kleymeyer Parks are hurting. The Otters are struggling financially. We have no plan to improve Bosse Field ( The Roberts Stadium situation version 2).
If we can't bring a project like this to their area, if we won't bring a project like this to their area, then when will we commit to helping this neighborhood that has given us great things like Bosse Field, the James Bethel Gresham house, and the youth field that Don Mattingly played on?
Just today, our city government moved the downtown arch from the land now occupied by the Ford Center to Garvin Park...
This is a strong sign from city hall that they want to connect Downtown Main Street and North Main Street. Wouldn't it make sense to build our ball fields at the northern gateway to Main Street? Wouldn't it make sense to use this stimulus project to help revitalize North Main Street so that it is on par with Downtown Main Street? And wouldn't it make sense to build our ball fields project around North Main Street so that these fields will feed into our taxpayer subsidized hotel that will be built next to the Ford Center?
If you believe in the potential of Garvin Park, Kleymeyer Park, and Bosse Field then please join us in fighting to bring the ball fields to Kleymeyer Park, not on the top of a demolished Roberts Stadium. It's time for two words to be heard at Kleymeyer Park....
PLAY BALL!
