JOINT MEETING

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS-CITY COUNCIL

MARCH 30, 2011

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners and Common Council of the City of Evansville met in joint session this 30^th day of March, 2011 at 5:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with Commission President, Lloyd Winnecke, and City Council President, B.J. Watts, presiding.

President Winnecke: Good evening. I would like to call to order this joint meeting of the Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners and the Evansville City Council for the purposes of a public hearing on the reorganization committee.

President Winnecke: First, I would like to invite a couple of our Scouts who happen to be here to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Winnecke: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Just a couple of housekeeping items, then we’ll get right to the public hearing. First of all, each body has to, this is the second reading of the reorganization plan that’s been proposed by the reorganization committee. There will be no vote tonight. Just so everyone understands that. This is a public hearing to get input on, get everyone’s opinion. If you decide to speak, I do have slips of paper, I will call these out, we will get to everyone who wants to speak. If you haven’t gotten me one, that’s fine. Everyone will get a chance to speak. We do have complimentary water right outside, it’s still cool, so feel free to help yourself, compliments of this body, the Commissioners, actually.

President Winnecke: B.J., would you like to start with your bit of business?

President Watts: Yes, the, we will hear the second reading of City Council resolution number C-2011-7, incorporating the reorganization plan by the City Council.

President Winnecke: And, then the County Commissioners are hearing the second reading on CO.R-03-11-003. I believe that’s the extent of the legalities that we need to get to tonight. Having said that, we’ll begin with the public comments.

John Hamilton: (Inaudible. Microphone not on.)

President Winnecke: Oh, okay.

President Watts: Yeah, we should take attendance.

Councilmember Adams: Would there be any purpose to read the preamble of this merger document? We didn’t do it last time.

President Winnecke: We can if you would like.

Councilmember Adams: I think I would.

President Winnecke: Okay.

Councilmember Adams: For the sake of completeness.

President Winnecke: We’ll do attendance first, then we’ll get to that.

Councilmember Adams: Excuse me, I didn’t mean to–

President Winnecke: That’s alright.

Lynn Buhr: Commissioner Abell?

Commissioner Abell: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Commissioner Winnecke?

President Winnecke: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilwoman Bredhold?

Councilmember Bredhold: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilwoman Mosby?

Councilmember Mosby: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilman McGinn is absent. Councilwoman Robinson?

Councilmember Robinson: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilman Friend?

Councilmember Friend: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilman John? Councilman Walker?

Councilmember Walker: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilman Watts?

President Watts: Here.

Lynn Buhr: Councilman Adams?

Councilmember Adams: I’m here.

Lynn Buhr: That’s it.

(Commissioners all present. City Councilmen McGinn and John absent.)

President Winnecke: Okay, at Councilman Adams’ request I will read the preamble to this. It’s not very long. This is again part of the reorganization plan that’s been presented to each of our bodies. It reads:

“The citizens of the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County hereby embrace the concept of a unified and reorganized city and county government, and have formulated this plan with the following goals in mind; the combined government is designed to and must endeavor to operate with efficiency, simplicity, and clarity; foster and embrace creative, forward thinking solutions to problems facing this community; ensure accountable, transparent, responsive and ethical government; encourage community and stakeholder participation in the civic decision making process; elect, appoint and employ professional, ethical and qualified leadership; distribute the cost of the combined government in a fair and equitable manner; and preserve our unique balance of rural and urban lifestyles. To these ends, it is the will of the public to move forward with a pride in our history and a renewed sense of community for the betterment of our fellow citizens.”

That’s the preamble.

Councilmember Adams: Thank you very much.

President Winnecke: You’re welcome.

President Winnecke: Okay, we’ll begin, the first name I have is D. J. Thompson.

Commissioner Abell: Mr. Winnecke, did you want to remind them that there’s some seats available out here?

President Winnecke: Oh, yeah, if you would like, there are some seats in this side conference room also. As a reminder, if you would, when you come to the microphone, state your name and spell it, please, if you don’t mind.

D.J. Thompson: D.J., common spelling, Thompson, T-h-o-m-p-s-o-n. I’m President of the Evansville Fraternal Order of Police. Our organization consists of approximately 600 active and retired members of law enforcement here within Vanderburgh County. Our membership includes officers from the Evansville Police Department, Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office, we have State Police officers, we have Gaming Commission, we have several officers from, or, I guess, you would call them agents from several different Federal agencies. I know you’re going to hear a lot of comments tonight, and I know you’re going to hear a lot of the same stuff. So, I really appreciate being the first one to be able to talk, that way I’m not copying anyone. Okay, the proposal from the reorganization committee that has been presented to you has several problems that I believe will make it hard for the citizens of our community support. Among them are the decreased representation of our minority population, a lack of any savings from taxpayers which will result from the consolidation of city-county government. I believe, the exchange at the last meeting was not only will county residents see their property taxes increase, but, I believe they also determined that there will be an increase in the city property taxes. Another problem, which I see in it is the checks and balances of having both a city and a county government, that will fail to exist. That came into play recently with the, whether you agree with it or not, the Roberts Stadium ballfields that were going up. I think that was a productive conversation that went on with that and the decision that was made there, which would not have been made with only one form of government. One issue, of course, that I’m going to talk about that really concerns the people I represent is the consolidation or the merger of local law enforcement. When this process first began, both Sheriff Williams and Chief Hill told the law enforcement sub-committee that all was well with law enforcement. As this was occurring, the FOP put together a committee of three deputies and three City Police officers to study what effect consolidating two or more law enforcement departments would have on a community. After much research, the committee offered an eight page report on their findings. Invariably, the communities that merged law enforcement saw an increase in the taxpayers to the financial cost of law enforcement, they saw cultural clashes related to forcing separate departments into one merged department, and they had low morale among the officers. Scott Newman, who addressed the committee, the reorganization committee, several months ago, was the former Public Safety Director in Indianapolis when the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and the Indianapolis Police Department merged. His, one of the things he said was that, or pointed out was that low morale of the police officers gives our bad guys a high morale. That’s how he explained the increase in crime rates that are also associated with consolidating two different law enforcement agencies. Locally, the difficulties in merging the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office and the Evansville Police Department would come from almost every factor associated with operating the departments, factors that the reorganization committee failed to take into account. The two departments are more different than alike. For starters, the Police Department serves an urban area, while the Sheriff’s Department serves a mainly rural area, and, of course, they take care of the Constitutional duties that are required by the Sheriff’s Office. The departments operate under different contracts, different pension, different ranks, and different longevity scales, along with different pay scales. To bring the officers of the same rank and the same longevity up to the same pay would just, in and of itself would cost several thousand dollars. Then we get into the equipment aspect of merging, someone has to pay for new uniforms, new badges, new raincoats, and new paint schemes for the patrol cars. I heard it suggested that the officers wear their separate uniforms and drive their separate patrol cars until those need replaced. The problem with this is that it will continue to ingrain in the minds of the law enforcement officers that there is still one group that would be looked down upon as losers during this merger. That brings us back to the low morale problem in merging law enforcement. I believe the reorganization committee has several well meaning members, but as a whole they failed to do their homework on many issues, including law enforcement. As I stated earlier, both the Sheriff and the Chief were in agreement that law enforcement is working well within Vanderburgh County. I was present when a sub-committee member made a statement to the effect that the committee wasn’t formed to keep things the same. I take issue with that. I believe that change for the better is good, but change for the sake of change is irresponsible, and in this case it would be counterproductive. Through the FOP I’ve had the pleasure and the ability to be able to travel to many different places and meet many police officers from other departments around the nation. Well, for that matter, from other countries even. I’ve learned through these travels that we do really have two excellent police, or, sorry, two excellent law enforcement departments within Vanderburgh County. If you don’t believe me, ask the citizens what, about the officers or the deputies that protect and serve them. The county residents will tell you how much they appreciate their Sheriff’s Office, and the deputies that protect them, while the city residents will tell you how much they appreciate the city officers that keep their streets safe. At the beginning of my speech, I’m almost finished, I told of several problems with the proposal. I do have a solution to the law enforcement section of the proposal. The solution would be to remove law enforcement totally from the proposal, and in the new charter include language that the departments will stay separate, while at the same time maintaining their current patrol areas and duties. Thank you.

Commissioner Melcher: I’ve got a question.

D.J. Thompson: Yes?

Commissioner Melcher: D.J., can I get a copy of that report of your committee?

D.J. Thompson: Yes, you can.

Commissioner Melcher: Thank you.

D.J. Thompson: I will send it to you. Brian Brown did it with our department. I will send it....if anyone else wants one, or I can send–

President Watts: Can you just get one to the Clerk’s Office and she will take care of it?

D.J. Thompson: The Clerk’s? Okay, I will do that.

Councilmember Adams: Mr. Thompson?

D.J. Thompson: Yes.

Councilmember Adams: Thank you for sending me that report, by the way. Could you elaborate, I don’t mean to put you on the spot here, elaborate on the statement that you made that the crime rate goes up in other, has gone up in other places when consolidation has occurred? What do you think the mechanism behind that might be?

D.J. Thompson: As Scott Newman, who was the Public Safety Director in Indianapolis said, and he was up there when they merged both departments, the morale, just the officers not being happy with what’s going on, they didn’t do their job as well, might be. I don’t know how they associate it, but he said their crime rate in Indianapolis did go up. The research in the paper that I will send out will show that that does not happen in every community. They might have it be static and stay the same, but ones that do have a change they generally have a change with more crime.

Councilmember Adams: Just one other point, when you say, when you’re talking about lowered morale with a merger, are you talking both about the police, the police in the city as well as the sheriff? Both departments?

D.J. Thompson: Well, it would depend on how the merger goes.

Councilmember Adams: I see.

D.J. Thompson: It would depend on who takes over who. Just speaking on that, currently, I’ve been a police officer for 21 years. In that 21 years we’ve had, the city side and the county side, of course, but, speaking from the city officers side, we’ve had very good relations with the Sheriff’s Department. We back each other up, we work hand in hand with each other. This reconsolidation commission, or reorganization committee has probably done the worst thing for law enforcement. It’s probably taken us back 20 years, as far as, I don’t know, the attitude of the policemen toward each other. Now it’s gotten to, not everyone, I mean, we have a lot of officers that don’t feel that way, but, I think you get a lot of them that are concerned who’s going to be in charge. This is something I know the Chief and the Sheriff they didn’t plan to spend this much time on. You know, it’s just, it’s not good. It’s just not good how–

Councilmember Adams: Would you care to comment on a system in which a Public Safety Czar, over both departments, might be considered?

D.J. Thompson: I think that was suggested in the sub-committee, and was ruled out pretty fast.

Councilmember Adams: For?

D.J. Thompson: To have a–

Councilmember Adams: Yeah, for what reason? I’m sorry to put you on the spot, I just–

D.J. Thompson: I don’t know what reason it was. I know they had, and actually in my other notes, I took notes during that one, but they came, I think they, well, there were four sub-committee members, I think all four of them had a different idea on how law enforcement should go. I think what it gets down to is, nothing against them, I know they gave their best, but, it would like me telling you how to do heart surgery. I’ve never done heart surgery. I’ve never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express to say I know how, but, you know, it’s the same way as saying, you know, them having an idea of you watch CSI so you know how to solve a crime.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah.

D.J. Thompson: It’s not that easy. It is a profession.

Councilmember Adams: Well, I would listen if you gave me some instruction on how to do heart surgery, but I wouldn’t take you very seriously. Thank you.

D.J. Thompson: Any other questions?

President Winnecke: Thanks, D.J.

D.J. Thompson: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Bill Jeffers?

Bill Jeffers: Good evening. Bill Jeffers, J-e-f-f-e-r-s, 2641 Malibu Drive. I want to say that we all, I’m sure we all appreciate the County Commissioners and the City Council having this public hearing and giving ample opportunity for everyone to say their piece. I would like to say that I’m not opposed to consolidated local government, so, the first minute or so I will concentrate on the type of local government, the consolidation of local government I would have liked to have seen. There are already several consolidated departments in city and county government that work very well together. There are other unconsolidated departments that work well together without being consolidated, and possibly would work more efficiently under consolidation. So, the concept I’m not opposed to. As a matter of fact, from the very beginning, other people and I suggested merger from the county perspective rather than from the city side. In other words, retain the three Commissioners, and the three Commissioners would retain their legislative and executive powers, and appoint a professional municipal manager. Why would this form be better than the strong Mayor form of government that the plan recommends? Because it affords more diversity, you have three people from different backgrounds. Look at the County Commissioners today, you have a banker, with a strong development background, you have a lady who has worked for a coal mining company in, I believe, mineral acquisition, and is now a real estate agent, coming from that perspective, and you have a man who has a community oriented background and has worked with organizations that help disadvantaged people. So, you have the opportunity for more diversity when you have the three County Commissioners than when you have one Mayor who most likely is going to be from a legal or professional background and he’s full time. In other words a professional politician. So, such as myself, I mean, I’m going to be fair about it. But, it gives you opportunity for various professional backgrounds to work together as a three-headed office with professional backgrounds and skills that are varied. Also, it’s a part time executive legislator body. It’s not a full time position like a Mayor. A part time legislative concept was conceived by the founders of this country. They never conceived of a system where there would be professional politicians who ran the country like they do in the U.S. Senate. They would just come from the country, they would come from their community, go up to Washington, D.C., serve a couple of terms and that was it. Okay? Go off to Texas and fight in the Alamo. But, that is the form of government that our founders conceived, and it’s the form of government that worked well for a very long time. Under this form of government that I would be able to support, a merged government with the Commissioners as the legislative and executive body, appointing a professional municipal manager, the Common Council would simply serve a budgetary function. They would have appointing powers and they would participate directly on boards like the Area Plan Commission, but, basically, their powers would be the same as the current County Council, just budgetary powers. They would also be part time politicians, as conceived by the founders. Now, there was a lot of talk and suggestions at your last meeting a couple of weeks ago about the power of the Mayor, versus the power of the Common Council. If a plan such as I am suggesting had been followed, with the County Commissioners and a municipal manager model, there wouldn’t have been any discussion about strong Mayor versus County Council’s role or influence two weeks ago. Term limits, especially for any elected official who handles money or wields a lot of power. This is going to come up, you might as well be thinking about it, that’s the reason why the Constitutional offices, at least seven of the nine have term limits, is because those people, like the Sheriff, either wields a lot of power, or those people like the Clerk or the Treasurer, handle a lot of money. The only two that don’t have term limits are the County Surveyor and the County Assessor, and I don’t know why that is. I think two or three terms is plenty for anybody, in one office. Then, if they can’t do without that person, they can hire me for Chief Deputy or as a consultant. But, I don’t think you can rationalize not having, or I don’t think you can rationalize having term limits for the Sheriff, and not having term limits for a Mayor. I don’t think you can rationalize having term limits for a County Recorder, and not having term limits for a County Assessor, but this plan leaves it the way it is, and you will not have term limits for the Mayor or the County Assessor. Non-partisan, I brought that up, other people have brought it up. At the local level, I truly don’t see the need for partisan elections. If Mr. Winnecke wants to go on being a Republican, that’s fine. If I want to go on being a Democrat, that’s fine. We could argue day and night over national issues, social issues at the national level, but I think we see eye to eye at the local level, and I think that’s true of all of you. The statutes tell us what our jobs are, and that’s the jobs were supposed to perform, and if we don’t we should be impeached. But, I don’t see any reason why there should be parties at the local level. I think it just divides from our true purpose and the intent that the State Constitution has, and the state statutes. I think it puts labels on us, like when you go in the mall and you see these kids walking down the mall with all of these different name brands on the outside of their clothing, it detracts from the purpose of the clothing. I think labels pasted on people day after, you know, well, you get the point. I wanted to bring up that the census block data is now available. That was an issue we spoke about over the past few weeks, and I had said that until the census block data becomes available you can’t redraw the precincts or the districts. Up until now it’s just been census tract data which showed the huge migration of people out into the county that necessitates the redrawing of the district maps that are a part of this plan. Well, now that census block data is online, GIS Department has that online, and I would like to say, the Commissioners really need to redraw the precincts. There are precincts where homes have been torn down, people have moved, and there’s just a handful of people left in those precincts. There’s precincts, like my own, where there’s thousands of people who have moved into the new subdivisions in Center Township, and the precincts are unwieldy in size out there. So, the last time those precincts were drawn, I believe was 2002, preparatory to the district, County Council district elections. Precincts are always drawn by the County Commissioners. You shouldn’t wait until after this plan takes effect, if it does take effect, for a transition team to do your job as County Commissioners. The City Council needs to redraw their voting districts, whether or not this plan passes, or this plan won’t even take effect until 2014, if it passes in 2012. The City Council, after the County Commissioners redraw the precincts, the City Council always has redrawn their precincts. You shouldn’t pass that duty along to a transition team under this plan. County Commissioners, again, they would be drawing the County Council and County Commissioner districts. The County Commissioner districts, the school districts, for their board are based on County Commissioner districts. So, they all need to be redrawn. This needs to be done now regardless of the plan, or regardless of the referendum. It definitely needs to be done before the referendum so that the map that goes to referendum represents what the people are going to get, not a pig in a poke. Okay, my real focus tonight, I wanted to focus on annexation versus expansion of the urban services district under this plan. There’s two ways for Evansville to expand, there’s two ways for Evansville to quickly increase population. One is by annexation, the way they do it now, and one is by consolidation under this plan, where you just simply expand the urban services district willy nilly. With annexation, state statutes guarantee due process. This merger plan bypasses due process and puts the burden of proof on the citizens whether the government’s really ready to expand the urban services district. Under state statute annexation, the annexing municipality has to prove it’s ready to take in new territory and provide services. The municipality must produce a fiscal plan showing how all municipal services, not just a few, but all municipal services regularly enjoyed by city residents, will be extended out into those living in the territory to be annexed within one year of annexation. However, under this plan of merger, all the municipality has to do is say it has extended some, but not all of the services into the territory to be annexed. I’m basing that straight on the words that come out of the plan. It does not say all of the services have to be extended. So, as I pointed out in an article I wrote, you could extend your bus route up to Ameriqual and annex everything between the airport and Cambridge Golf Course based on extension of one service, the way I read the plan. Under this plan of merger all the municipality has to do is say it has extended some, but not all of the services in the territory to be annexed, and this plan does not even address all the services that the city residents enjoy compared to all of the services that we in the unincorporated county get by on. For example, legal drain assessments, this plan doesn’t mention legal drain assessments in detail, yet when the city annexes, like they did in 2008 when you annexed that huge chunk of the eastside, you’re now paying that assessment, $22.50, per acre that the farmers or the commercial property owners were paying to the county Drainage Board, now that’s paid by the city. The financial plan, if there was one, would take that into account. Drainage improvements in easements outside of public road right-of-way, in the county that’s done by private property owner. If a drainage easement runs across your property and there’s a pipe or a ditch in that easement, you have to take care of that, you the private property owner. In the city, if it’s in the easement, the city takes care of it if there’s a problem. That’s not taken into account and that can get very expensive. Recycling is not mentioned. Street lighting, in the plan it says those of us out in the county will pay for street lighting on a fee for service basis. It doesn’t say that that goes away when you expand the urban services district. It appears that we would still pay for that, although people in the city don’t. Sidewalks, Area Plan Commission requires all new subdivisions in the city to have sidewalks. That’s not a requirement in the county. In the unconsolidated area the Commissioners can waive the requirement for sidewalks. The plan kind of leaves that alone, so, you could have urban service district expansion and they would not have sidewalks. Basically, in that regard I’m just trying to point out that the plan doesn’t cover it all. The plan does not address outstanding bonds and indebtedness of the township fire department. The annexation statutes do. The annexation statutes specifically say what you have to do when you annex to take care of the outstanding bonds and indebtedness of the township with regard to fire service. The plan does not limit the urban expansion district to urbanized areas only. Under consolidation you can only annex heavily populated areas, or areas of heavy commercial or industrial development. Under this plan, you can just, as I have said, simply say that you’ve extended some services out there, and even if it’s an underpopulated area, you can annex it. This plan does not provide proper legal notification of citizens who’s property will be taken into the urban district and who’s taxes will be raised. Under annexation statutes, the municipality has to prepare written notices and mail them to every property owner by certified mail. I’m not sure exactly how this plan proposes to notify people that they’re getting ready to have their taxes hiked. Long story short, the existing annexation statutes require the municipality to prove its ready and capable to take on additional responsibilities, and provide specific services into the territory that’s going to be annexed, naming the source of funding and the agencies that will provide those services. This plan does not do that. I think the Crowe Horwath study should have done that. I believe the legislatures, the legislators intended for this plan of merger to include an economic impact study to address such things, because I believe the legislators were aware that consolidation of local government is just fast tracking annexation. I think that when a municipality fast tracks annexation the same standards should apply as when a municipality annexes by the existing statutes. Otherwise the burden of proof is, whether the municipality is ready to expand is placed on the citizens rather than on the government, and I don’t believe that’s right. I don’t think the people should ever be put in a defensive position by the government. I think the government has to prove itself to the people. Thank you for your time.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bill.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Les Shively?

Les Shively: Thank you members of the Board of Commissioners and City Council. I want to thank, first of all, the League. The League took the initiative last year to move this forward, and also thank the hard working committee that put together this proposal. A lot of hard work, a lot of time, a lot of effort, but I think there is some, two major problems with the plan, in all due respect. Officer Thompson hit the main one right on the head. Over 50 years ago this community, through a legislative act, initiated the first merit system for law enforcement, local law enforcement officials. We’ve set the standard for local law enforcement. We’ve set that standard ever since that law went into effect, with both our Police Department and our Sheriff Department. They work with one court system, one Prosecutor’s Office. We don’t need to change it. The Sheriff’s Department and the Police Department work very well together, and I would urge, if this moves forward, you seriously consider the comments by Officer Thompson and modify that part of the plan to allow these two very strong law enforcement agencies to....as I say, work with one court system and one Prosecutor very effectively. Leave it intact. They’re doing a great job, and we set the standard for the state. Why change it? The Council districts, here’s where I’m going to agree with my good friend, Bill Jeffers, on one item, then I’m going to disagree with him on another item. I think that we should have 15 districts, no at large, and those districts ought to be based upon the latest census data we can get. For those of you who didn’t get an opportunity to read Mr. Jeffers’ article in the Courier two weeks ago, an excellent piece, and I commend it to your reading, because he has an excellent suggestion of how we create these districts and how we use the census data. But, I think that’s the way to be more inclusive so people that are outside the corporate limits now feel a part of this new metro system. The more districts that are smaller and that are based upon current data, I think will result in a more representative Council. On fiscal concerns, this is sort of message I would like to deliver to the proponents. I see a lot of folks out here that I know are opposed to a consolidated government, and one of the arguments they’ve made is a good one. Why should we pay higher taxes arbitrarily just because we have a new metro system? That’s a question that has to be answered. Quite frankly, I don’t think the fiscal consultants really answered that question. You can’t just take the county budget and the city budget, add them together and divide them by the number of properties and say that’s a sophisticated fiscal plan. This statute allows this to occur, allows also and provides to encourage creativity. I would urge the proponents, again, if they go back out, if this gets on the ballot and we have this great public discussion on the future of local government in this community, we’re going to have to do more than just arithmetic. We’re going to have to show how we’re going to save some costs, it’s more than just combining two budgets. How is it all going to work? Because, simply increasing taxes arbitrarily is not acceptable, but is avoidable with the right formula and the right consultants with the right task. I think it can be accomplished. The best way, however, to reduce taxes for every taxpayer is to increase the tax base. The more properties paying taxes, the less taxes individual property owners have to pay. I’m convinced consolidated government is going to take us along that direction. Back in 2006, and I think Commissioner Winnecke was with me on that trip, there was, a study was done in 2005 urging this community to move toward consolidated government. The statute we have now was not in place. We were trying to get a statute for, to allow us to implement it here locally, a special statute, if you will. Mr. Winnecke and I appeared with some other folks before a House committee on government reform, and before we started talking to them, one of the first things they said was, is it true about Vanderburgh County that you have one school system? We looked at each other, we took it for granted, doesn’t everyone have one school system? The answer is no. Again, another area where we have been the leaders, 50-60 years ago we did away with the township school system, had a consolidated school system, which we have today, which has served this community very, very well. Again, another area where we were on the leadership, in terms of consolidating government for a better product, reducing costs, and we need to be the leaders once again. In closing, I want to refute a couple of things that Mr. Jeffers said about annexation. I’ve been fighting annexation cases since 1984. Annexation is everything but due process. In order to fight annexation, you have to have 65 percent of the property owners in the area, or the owners of 75 percent of the assessed valuation. Mr. Jeffers talked about this certified mail notice, before the Court of Appeals this evening is a case out of this community for the City of Evansville, no disrespect, Mr. Hamilton, kept changing their maps, and quite frankly, not everyone affected got certified mail notice, and the trial court said, that’s okay. We don’t think that was okay. Annexation is a hostile takeover. One of the things that’s been in the annexation law for years is the fact that people that are in the newly annexed area start paying taxes before they get the services. The city has three years to provide capital services, yet the tax increase goes in immediately. Annexation is nothing more than a hostile takeover, and it’s anything but fair, and, at the end of the day, if you annex everything that’s left in Vanderburgh County, you’re still going to have county government, city government and township government, all these layers here, and the services may get to the people. I strongly urge this joint body to send this proposal forward with the modifications that I’ve suggested, and let’s have the public discussion begin, because this is really the future of this community in so many ways. We’re all looking forward to the day where I-69 is finally open, finally completed to Indianapolis, but I’m going to tell you, this community will not fully be able to embrace that opportunity if we don’t go the way of other communities that have consolidated their governments, made themselves more nimble to take advantage of economic opportunities. So, I urge you to send this matter forward with the appropriate modifications, and, again, let the discussion begin. Thank you very much.

President Winnecke: Joanne Alexandrovich?

Joanne Alexandrovich: Thank you for hearing my testimony today. My name is Joanne Alexandrovich, A-l-e-x-a-n-d-r-o-v-i-c-h. I live on Motz Road in the county. In the interest of saving time, this is the shortened version of my planned testimony. I present to you the longer version in writing, and I ask you to take the time to read it. Here are my main concerns about the proposed reorganization plan. It neither directly addresses nor shows how efficiencies are created or restrictions to government business eliminated. That is the purpose of the Indiana Government Modernization Act. Based on available information, the proposal appears to benefit city residents at the expense of county residents. County objections to the plan by referendum are all but sure to fail because city voters outnumber county voters by approximately 1.6 to one. Should this plan be passed, rural resident objections to new business are also likely to be ignored, because, at best, their interest would still be in the minority five to six. Unifying city and county code is left up to a transition board should the merger be voted on and approved. I believe unified code must be presented as part of the plan for referendum vote. There are not guarantees that debts for any new projects will be paid by the taxing units of those that benefit from them. Too much power and control over the proposed government structure is given to the Mayor. I prefer a multi-member commission over a single Mayor. Think about it, a single Mayor can’t be in three places at one time, but a three member Commission could. I really do think that three heads are better than one. Each person, each Commissioner brings his or her strengths to the table, and like Bill Jeffers said, that’s diversity and strength. I also believe that the Combined Vanderburgh-Evansville City, Evansville Government should be based on some form of Council Manager model. Nearly half of all municipalities greater than 2,500 people in the U.S. have a form of Council Manager government. According to the consolidation committee meeting minutes this form of government may not have been considered, because a City Manager has no political base, perhaps making it harder for this manager to get things done if Council approval is required. That’s the whole point. A manager with the appropriate degree and resume and no political base would focus on efficient, non-partisan running of day to day city business, undistracted by political battles. The politics, development, visioning, legislating and other activities could be the focus of elected officials. I oppose the idea of deciding later on how law enforcement is to be combined, especially if the sole purpose is to rally votes for merger approval. It should be up to the constituents to approve radical changes in law enforcement, rather than a committee or Council. Also, in order to avoid the case of an entirely freshman body of elected officials, elections should be staggered. Although if you have a City Manager there may not be as much of a loss of business knowledge. Also, it’s not clear that this plan will result in any lowered government expenditures, and possibly make things more expensive. In conclusion, to me, combined government by its very definition suggests a sharing of government power and responsibility. That sharing is not evident in this current proposal. In fact, the more I consider the proposal, the more and more it began to look to me like Evansville would simply be erasing any vestige of Vanderburgh County from the map. Please send this proposal back for an overhaul, or throw it away completely and not allow it to move forward to public referendum. Thank you for your attention.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Thank you. Bernice Tirmenstein?

(Applause)

Bernice Tirmenstein: Bernice Tirmenstein, Tirmenstein is spelled T-i-r-m-e-n-s-t-e-i-n. I’m used to spelling that. I have read and studied the City of Evansville-Vanderburgh County, Indiana Plan of Reorganization many times. The more I read it, the more questions arise that are not answered. A model that was used was Louisville, Kentucky, bringing economic development was it’s principle purpose. The business community spent one million dollars supporting the merger referendum with the hope, the hope that Louisville could compete in a bigger league with the idea that a large city could attract business. Too, I read the article, Beyond the Rhetoric: Lessons from Louisville Consolidation, published by the American Review of Public Administration, 2010, and originally put online in March of 2009. Here’s a quote from it that is worth noting. “Two years ago, after the merger, the question was asked of residents, would you say that overall the merger has made you better off or worse off?” Of the respondents, 13 percent reported they were better off; 9.4 percent reported they were worse off; 8.6 percent indicated they did not know; and 69.1 percent reported they were about the same. This research was done by the University of Louisville, the Department of Sociology in 2004. The article further stated that rarely, if ever, is a plan reversed. Most scholars would acknowledge that the ability of local government to affect larger economic forces is quite limited. Politicians who want consolidation also know voters are mindful of their pocketbooks. Once a campaign is underway, politicians are bound to inflate promises of economic development. In short, we need to be attentive to any possible mismatch between claim and reality. I feel becoming educated on any issue is the key. I think we’ve had people speak tonight that are giving us some thoughts on education, helping us to be educated. Many people say to me that they felt the Mayor has too much power as they read the plan, and wanting to know more to substantiate their claim. I did some research on my own, and on exhibit D, page 22 of the plan, I counted 59 appointed boards, commissions and authorities in the new, Combined Government plan. Then, I counted the number of people serving on these boards, commissions and authorities that are appointed by the Mayor, not elected, that number of people was 181. So, you see, the Mayor does have power. I say no to the power of the Mayor and the politicians, and yes to the power of the people. The more I try to get a feel for the full impact of the merger, I came to the conclusion this is much like Nancy Pelosi saying in regard to the Healthcare Bill, you have to pass it in order to know what’s in it. My opinion is reject the plan. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Jennie Downey?

Jenny Downey: Jennie Downey, J-e-n-n-i-e, D-o-w-n-e-y. I live at 508 Cross Valley Circle. I’m looking at things on this proposal from a little different perspective. I am disabled, I’m on the Disability Advisory Board, and the problem that I’m seeing is the Mayoral appointments and accountability. Right now, and people that know me know I’m big on access and transportation. Right now, if you have to go to the Board of Public Works to get something done related to the bus or a street, and they’re going to send you to another department, which is going to send you to another department, and if they’re not doing their job, half of you guys on the Council don’t know what’s going on anyway. The communication and accountability and the transparency that the preamble states is not going to be in effect. You all are going to catch the brunt on these boards if stuff’s not getting done, and you should have that power to have some say in what’s going on. If you help appoint a board member and they screw up, okay, then, you’re butts are on the line, but, if you don’t, if only the Mayor is the only one that has to account for it, you all are still going to get blamed. That’s not right. We have no way to impeach people that aren’t doing the job right. That definitely needs to be taken care of. Term limits, absolutely. I know they were talking that the Mayor that’s only happened one time gone more than a couple of terms, but even for the Council, like Ms. Abell said, she’s sitting here, but you don’t want somebody here that’s been there forever. You know, it holds too much power, too much political, not quite sure what the word is, that long term thing. You have a lot of power and you kind of run things from the side. That needs to be limited so, you know, new ideas can come in, fresh faces can come in, creativity can come in. My other problem is, there does need to be more than 11 spaces. I don’t believe that they need to be, they need to be maybe 15, so you still have to have seven, or eight to seven to make it, something pass, but they need to be districts separate, no at, you know, the at large members. That way everybody is equally, the inner-city and the county areas are all going to be covered. The other issue that I noticed now is that currently where you have annexed areas, and there again it goes into the communication, you’ve taken over areas that are not compliant with the law. Burkhardt Road and all of that area should be under ADA compliance when it comes to the roads, the sidewalks, the wheelchair accessible ramps, and they’re not. We have empty buildings on the north side, everything is moving east, and the west side and the north side are getting left out. We need more of a say. There again, you guys have the power, will have the power to work together. You do now, for the most part, anyway, but we’ve got to do something to work together. We’ve got to not get the cart before the horse. If you combine all of this area, there’s all kinds of other little issues that are going to fall into place that aren’t accounted for in this plan. If it actually costs you a lot more money than this is actually estimating. In (Inaudible) I ask you all to reject it, let them go back to the drawing board, start over again, and see if we can’t find something that will work for everybody, and not leave the Mayor being in charge of everything and you guys stuck catching the brunt of the issues if something goes wrong.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Jennie. Roberta Heiman?

Roberta Heiman: Roberta Heiman. It’s H-e-i-m-a-n. I’m President of the League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana. A year ago we began the process that we’re here about today by circulating the petition. I have copies of our statement that I will give to each of you, and I won’t read them. I would only add to the written comments that for every study that you read that consolidation does not work, there will be at least another study saying that it does work. There’s no consensus, and one reason is that there’s no single consolidation plan. Each one is different. Each community is different in the approach. So, you know, I’m not going to stand here and cite, well, this study says it works, because Evansville is not like Louisville. Evansville is not like Indianapolis. One of the reasons we’re not like them is because we’re already largely consolidated. We’ve consolidated our schools, we’ve consolidated our courts, we’ve consolidated like 14 or 15 city-county departments already. What we have not consolidated is our leadership. We have, how long, this is such an unusual event for the city and county elected officials to be meeting together, to consider something together. You know, how often do you not do that? For you to not do that is the norm, and we contend that it makes no sense for a city government and county government to exist down the hall from each other and act like you’re serving different communities. You’re serving the same community, and we would urge that we start acting like one community to move forward and have a single agenda to serve the citizens of this community well. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Roberta.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Eric Gries?

Eric Gries: My name is Eric Gries. G-r-i-e-s. I want to thank the County Commissioners and the City Council for hearing our concerns about this consolidation issue. I’ve been in the trash business for about 20 years, and I’ve worked hard to grow and expand this business. My business picks up residential trash for the resident outside the Evansville city limits. We offer a complete selection of pick up services, such as curbside pick up, driveway service, and heavy trash pick up on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly schedule. In other words, we offer a variety of trash pick up services, tailored to each customer’s needs or requests. Many of our county residents live too far off the road, which would prohibit them from hauling their trash to the road. That’s why we offer driveway service, if requested. We have competition from other haulers in the county. So, we strive to offer a great pick up service at competitive rates. In other words, the customer has a choice. If this consolidation issue goes through, my business, and the other competitive haulers in the county will be affected. Should the urban services district be expanded into the county, and a single trash hauling contractor be issued an exclusive contract, all the efforts and equipment that I’ve invested in will be impacted. That’s what really has me concerned here. My livelihood and that of my employees and their families are in jeopardy. I’ve spoken with numerous of my customers and friends in the county, and most of them are concerned and are against consolidation. We feel we’re being drawn into a situation that we are totally against, and we see very few positive benefits for the citizens outside the present city limits. As an example, the annexation that just occurred in Knight Township will impact my business. Effective April 1^st they will be offered the city trash pick up service. The customers that I have in that area will no longer have a choice, unless they want to pay twice. That erodes my customer base and adversely affects my business. I fear the same thing will happen here if this consolidation will go through, and the city trash pick up service is expanded into the county. I ask you to keep this in mind as you look to modify the existing proposal, which is before you and was written by the consolidation committee. Many times, many times our intentions are honorable and good, but the results are not. On behalf of me, my employees, customers, and friends, and family, I ask that you vote against consolidation. My name again is Eric Gries. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Eric.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Bruce Ungenthiem?

Bruce Ungenthiem: My name is Bruce Ungentheim. I’m not sure how to spell my–

President Winnecke: If you don’t, we don’t.

Bruce Ungenthiem: U-n-g-e-t-h-i-e-m. Phonically correct. I’ve talked a lot about the issues of the plan, and I don’t want to belabor that point. What I wanted to do tonight was take a look at the past, the present and the future, and what the future might hold. There have been three proposals for consolidated government in Vanderburgh County in the last many years. The first one in 1974 was a plan called VandiGov. I’ll call it VandiGov 1, proposed by the administration of the late Mayor Russell Lloyd, and was defeated in a county-wide referendum by a three to one margin. In 1990, VandiGov 2 showed up, and a plan was drafted by a 35 member citizen committee, and that plan got tabled by then Mayor Frank McDonald II, and the County Commissioners because the support from the community just wasn’t there. In 2006 VandiGov 3 came about, and it was a consolidated plan drafted by a 17 member citizen committee, and that was blocked by the state legislature, which refused to allow the referendum vote on the proposal, because they didn’t think it would pass. So, here we are today in the present with VandiGov 4, largely the same plan, and I’m glad Dr. Adams asked that the preamble be read, because I’m going to go through the preamble and just see how much of the preamble this plan actually delivers on. Consolidation will operate efficiently, simplistically, and with clarity. Well, efficiency is usually measured by savings of time or money. This plan will generate neither a savings of time, nor a savings of money. In fact, data from Louisville and Indy suggest that the combined cost of government, after consolidation, actually goes up, not down. Simpler, I’ll give you that, it’s definitely simpler, but most monarchies are.

(Applause)

Bruce Ungenthiem: Democracy is not supposed to be simple. Democracy is supposed to be complex and fair to everyone. Clarity, I think the only clarity that will be in this new form of government is for the elites in power, because the rest of the people will be in the dark as to what these 59 different committees are doing behind closed doors. Point two, foster and embrace creativity, and forward thinking solutions. I’ve been in business for 33 years and just recently retired, and one of the things I know for sure is fewer people of like minds making decisions do not breed creativity. When we wanted creativity, we actually went through brainstorming sessions and we brought people in from all walks of the committee, or all walks of the company to try to brainstorm on new ideas. This simply makes that decision making process a smaller group of people. Forward thinking solutions does not depend on organizational structure, but depends on who is in that structure. Encourage accountability, transparency, responsibility, and ethical government. Accountability? Really? What part of this plan has any accountability to it at all? We don’t know what it’s going to say, we don’t know how much time it’s going to take, we don’t know a lot of things. This plan doesn’t say anything about that. If any of you think that a government with this much power in the Mayor’s office will be more accountable, I really have to disagree with you there. Transparency, with 59 appointed boards working behind closed doors, do you really think there will be transparency in this form of government? Responsibility and ethical government, how can a government run by an autocratic Mayor possibly be responsible or ethical? I would ask you to think about Chicago. Encourage community and stakeholder participation in the civic decision making process. Well, with less representation for the citizens, how do you suppose the community will participate more? Just a thought. With all of the appointed committees who can hold private meetings and make decisions without public input, how do you suppose the community will be more involved in the decision making process? I don’t think that will happen. Elect, appoint and employ professional, ethical and qualified leadership. How does this change in structure do that? What does it ensure if an unethical person is elected Mayor of the community? We’ll be in deep trouble, because there’s no checks and balances to keep that person from doing whatever he chooses to do. Preserve our unique balance of rural and urban lifestyle. Well, this change will do neither. Data from Louisville suggests that increasing amounts of money are required to extend services into the rural community, which they don’t want, by the way, at the expense of the urban community, which will be deprived of those services. Both areas will lose their lifestyle, and everyone will pay more. In both Indy and Louisville, the people who want to maintain the rural lifestyle, simply move out of the county to the adjacent counties, and the loss of revenue becomes devastating to the consolidated community. The fact is this plan will not deliver the results proported by the elites who derived it, and is very difficult, if not impossible to retract it once it is in place. My business experience, having been through multiple management structural changes, indicates there’s no perfect structural organization, the reality is the best organizations are those that stick with a common structure, work around its weaknesses, and hire the best qualified people they can to work within that structure. Now, for the future, if this plan does pass and goes to the voting people and passes, I think you can expect the following; first, each of you running for re-election, and I think that’s most of you here this year, will have to answer to the people for your decision. Your opponent will make this a campaign issue. As a public service to them, We the People will make the facts readily available to whoever requests it. Second, you condemn the community to months and months of battle and propaganda from the elites to try to put lipstick on this pig going to the vote. Not to mention the cost of the battle will surely be funded by the Chamber of Commerce, which should be spending its time and money on more important things like bringing jobs to the community.

(Applause)

Bruce Ungenthiem: Third, should the elite prevail and it passes the voters, you commit the community to two years of triple government with a transition team at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer. Finally, after the consolidation and election there’s no turning back. If someone of questionable character gets elected into Mayor, or his or her party control both the Mayor and the Common Council, the checkbook is wide open. There is no checks and balances. If there’s a split between the Mayor and the Council, we’ll have gridlock and nothing will get done. We may even have some people move to Urbana, I don’t know. For these reasons, please do not lead us across this burning bridge without the possibility of returning to a form of government that is now working. If you want to do the job your constituents elected you to do, you will reject this plan quickly so that you and the rest of the community can spend their time and their money solving more important matters of the community. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bruce,

(Applause)

Councilmember Bredhold: Commissioner Winnecke? May I?

President Winnecke: Sure.

Councilmember Bredhold: Thank you. I just, I would like to clear something up, I think. I think there might be some misunderstandings about exhibit D of the plan, which lists the 59 appointed boards, commissions, etcetera. Those boards are all in existence now, they have appointed members of our community who are appointed by the Mayor, the Commissioners, the City Council, various entities, and under this plan they continue to be appointed by various entities, not just the Mayor. They are, as Mizell pointed out in his editorial in the Courier a couple of weeks ago, members of our community getting involved in government. Just because they’re appointed that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are beholden or puppets of whoever appointed them. There are appointed members of Council that are evidence of that fact, I think. Also, I have a question for John Hamilton. How many of these 59 appointed boards meet privately? Most of these meetings are public, aren’t they?

John Hamilton: Reading through them, it looks like all of them would be subject to Open Door requirements.

Councilmember Bredhold: Okay. They must have their doors open for anyone to come attend?

John Hamilton: Right.

Councilmember Bredhold: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Matt Meadors?

Matt Meadors: Good evening. My name is Matt Meadors, M-a-t-t, M-e-a-d-o-r-s. I am the President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana. President Winnecke, President Watts, Commissioners, Councilmembers, let me begin by expressing my thanks to you for conducting this evening’s public forum on city-county unification. Also, I would like to thank the League of Women Voters of Southwestern Indiana, and the reorganization committee, our fellow citizens, for all of their work in getting us to where we are this evening. The Chamber’s program of work is driven by six key areas of strategic focus, and together these key areas of strategic focus and resulting program of work have a common denominator, which is the creation of economic prosperity. Virtually everything we do is designed to strengthen our region’s economic development competitive position. Virtually everything we do is designed to grow the regional business community, create desirable good paying jobs for our fellow citizens, improve our quality of life and generate ample revenues to pay for necessary public services. It’s not a secret that the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana supports the unification of the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County into one Metro form of government. Our support is based on a belief that the formation of a Metro form of government will strongly complement the work that the Chamber and other mission similar organizations, our partners, undertake in order to create economic prosperity. We have no hidden agenda. We simply want our businesses, institutions and fellow citizens to do well. We have done our due diligence, we have visited and investigated high performing communities with a Metro form of government, including; Nashville, Louisville and Lexington. We’ve met with individuals involved in government unification efforts in those communities, as well as past and present elected officials and business leaders. We learned many important lessons, but perhaps the most powerful lesson of all is the fact that the vast majority of the leaders in these communities believe that their Metro form of government has strengthened their ability to compete for investments, jobs and talent, and led to greater economic growth and prosperity for their citizens. From the Chamber’s perspective, this is a compelling argument for moving forward with the unification of the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County into one Metro form of government. The resulting unified vision and leadership will serve us well, and further enhance our ability to vigorously compete for investments, jobs and talent on the global stage. We respectfully encourage you to move the reorganization plan forward. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Matt.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Carole Davis?

Carole Davis: Carole Davis, C-a-r-o-l-e, D-a-v-i-s. It seems the enthusiasm we have for sports at our state universities far outweigh our recognition of their academics. Why is it that we don’t utilize the various fields of studies from our great universities for researching? What could the money of $100,000 plus given to the reorganization committee have meant to the universities in their fields of studies? I thought it was quite arrogant that the appointed citizens consolidation committee took their show to both U of E and to USI, we used their buildings, we didn’t use their brain. We need to have unbiased facts, figures, pay, perks and pensions on consolidation of offices reported in as much detail by the media as was devoted to the men’s Final Four. If the public is given the knowledge, instead of scare tactics, they can make informed decisions. I have a child advocacy organization and I’m quite perplexed that the union of the Fraternal Order of Police accepts under qualified child welfare workers to do the investigation and decision making of child abuse crimes. The State Child Welfare workers even investigate their own crimes against children. Does the Fraternal Order of Police not feel they have adequate skills to investigate crimes against children? The most innocent and vulnerable citizens among us have the least qualified protection. In my opinion, we need to consolidate law enforcement and have an elected official that will campaign to protect the rights of children and not be pandering to politics and collective bargaining. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Thanks, Carole. Charleen Williamson?

Charleen Williamson: Hi, I’m Charleen Williamson, C-h-a-r-l-e-e-n, Williamson, W-i-l-l-i-a-m-s-o-n. This is, go ahead.

Chris Cooke: Chris Cooke, C-h-r-i-s, C-o-o-k-e. I’m President of United Neighborhoods of Evansville, and Charleen is President Elect. I’ll let Charleen present.

Charleen Williamson: Thank you all for listening to us and all of these guests that are here tonight. It is the official view of United Neighborhoods of Evansville that the proposed City of Evansville-Vanderburgh County, Indiana Plan of Reorganization as its currently written is a plan in which our organization, which is United Neighborhoods of Evansville, does not support. Currently, United Neighborhoods of Evansville represents roughly 40 neighborhood associations within both the City of Evansville and parts of Vanderburgh County. We feel there will be additional support for the proposed City of Evansville-Vanderburgh County, Indiana Plan of Reorganization proposal from the neighborhood associations within our membership if the following proposed amendments are made. Our concerns with the current proposal center on the following points; we feel the proposed Common Council should be elected on staggered terms. For example, half of the Councilmembers and the Mayor should be elected within one election cycle, while the rest of the Councilmembers would be on another. This ensures that there is never a chance for a 100 percent turnover, and will help to alleviate all potential confusion from the possibility of having an entirely new Council all at one time. Our second point, we feel there should be term limits on the Common Council, as well as on the Mayor. Our third point, we feel the Common Council should be larger, with no at large members. This will provide more representation to all residents at a neighborhood level. Our fourth point, we feel law enforcement by both the City Police Department and the County Sheriff’s Office should be left as it is today. This letter was approved by United Neighborhoods of Evansville Board on February 16, 2011, and United Neighborhoods of Evansville’s general membership on February 24, 2011. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Charleen. Chris, did you want to talk?

Chris Cooke: I just–

(Applause)

Chris Cooke: –Charleen’s going to be President of the organization in 2012, my term will end at the end of the year, so that’s why I felt it appropriate for Charleen to read it into the record, because when this potentially reaches a conclusion, she’ll actually be representing the organization and not me. So, thank you for your time this evening.

Charleen Williamson: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Charleen.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Mike Sandefur?

Michael Sandefur: Michael Sandefur. Michael, and then S-a-n-d-e-f-u-r. First of all, thank you for having a public hearing here tonight. I guess, have you ever been in a situation where you wondered how did we get into this mess? So, I think, what I’m going to do is I’m going to back up and kind of take a look at where we were and how we got here. First of all, I’m going to talk about the enabling legislation. You know, I know it’s in a file somewhere, but I think it would better be on a cardboard spool somewhere. First of all, it literally empowers a handful of busy bodies to go out and get a super minority of signatures, and suddenly we embark, the governing bodies embark on a process of reorganization. Now, think about it here, we have a 200 year old form of government that has made Evansville among the most successful in the nation. Yes, we’re not an Atlanta, or perhaps a New York, Chicago, L.A., and I say, thank God for that. I like Evansville the way it is. How many of you would agree we should casually discard our Federal government, Federal form of government on a simple majority vote, and then empower a dozen or so folks to go out and re-establish our Federal form of government? Is there anybody on this Board that would raise their hand and say that’s something they would support? Anybody? That’s a very refreshing number of hands there, because, then, who among you would agree we should casually discard our highly successful form of government with a simple majority and then appoint a dozen or so folks to lay out a new government? If you wouldn’t do it for the Federal government, if you wouldn’t abolish our Federal government, then don’t abolish our local government. Since most of you supported the action of not abolishing our Federal government in the same manner we’re proposing to abolish our local government, then I can only draw two conclusions to that. One is you’ve studied and you’ve looked at the facts, looked at the statistics, and based on sound knowledge have changed your mind and no longer support this. The second conclusion is, that you’re not willing to face up to your constituents right now and tell them, and let them know that this is simply bad business. The only good news about the legislation is, is that it gives you choices. You have the choice to reject it. You have the choice to send it back, and you have the choice to send it forward as a referendum. As far as sending it back, frankly I don’t care how much lipstick you put on that pig, it’s still going to be a pig. Let’s talk about choices, now, I can appreciate how some folks are nervous about this, about not sending it to a referendum, but as an example of poor choices, we have a political pyorrhea in our community. His name is Jonathan Weinzapfel. He earned this distinction by making poor choices. Choices such as trying to steal our homestead tax credits, and then ramming through an arena that nobody wanted. Had he and some other elected officials used good judgement and simply went to ball games, grocery stores and social events and talked with folks, you would have come to a conclusion very quickly that nobody wanted the arena. That stealing tax credits and building arenas was a bad idea, then you would come back here, said no, and that business would have been over, and we would have been about $200 billion richer in this community, $200 million richer. You have those same choices on the annexation plan. When I was about 12 I figured there were two types of mistakes in the world, the mistakes that I made, and the mistakes that everybody else made. I also learned it was a lot easier and less painful to learn from somebody else’s mistakes. You have the education and benefit of seeing what happened to Mayor Weinzapfel for not listening to the people. You have the opportunity to educate yourself on all of the other failed mergers as well. Make no mistake about it, each of you that move forward with this program will earn the same political designation as Jonathan Weinzapfel. Instead of stealing our tax credits and ramming through arenas, you will be recognized as stealing our government and ramming mass annexation. Please kill this nonsense. Please learn from the mistakes of others. If you elect to make your own mistakes, be assured the majority of the folks behind me will be more than happy to provide you the same education that we did Jonathan Weinzapfel. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Mike Mahan?

Mike Mahan: My name is Mike Mahan. Last name is M-a-h-a-n, and I just have a couple of simple questions about communication. As you know, as was mentioned previously, the redevelopment committee held two formal meetings, one at University of Evansville and USI. My question is, what results came from all of the comments that the people shared at those meetings? I asked one member of the committee this evening, in this room, what was the results of that, and she said, she referred to the Chairman. She didn’t know what Becky did with those comments. Have any of you, and I would suggest that you, since they were paid for with $3,000 of public funds, see the results of those comments that were made in a formal setting. Thank you so much for listening, and I’m going to submit these to, the documents of those meetings.

Councilmember Adams: Sir, I have a question for you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Mike.

Mike Mahan: Go ahead, please.

Councilmember Adams: I happened to attend, I didn’t get to the U of E one, but I did go to the USI meeting, and about two thirds of the people were members of a Poli Sci course out there. So, I wasn’t sure whether they were voters or not, and they did break up into small meetings. You’re right, I never got the report of what the findings were.

Mike Mahan: I can tell you, because–

Councilmember Adams: Kathy Kleinsdorf, I believe, was the gal that put it together, who was the facilitator for that.

Mike Mahan: In the first session that I attended, the facilitators were going to be cheerleaders for the program, until we convinced them that we were here as in their program from the facilitator, to discuss concerns. There were approximately 83 concerns expressed in the group that I was in. There was approximately 53 concerns in the group that I was in in the USI.

Councilmember Adams: Well, the point that I’m trying to make is–

Mike Mahan: Yeah.

Councilmember Adams: – I thought at least two thirds of the people were students and probably didn’t have a vested, certainly weren’t taxpayers, and certainly I didn’t think have much of a vested interest.

Mike Mahan: Well, yes, and no, because I have attended many of these meetings since the beginning, and I knew a lot of the people in attendance, and I do agree with you that there were Political Science students there.

Councilmember Adams: Were you there at USI?

Mike Mahan: I was at both of them.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah, so you know, you probably saw the same thing.

Mike Mahan: I know who sat on the side of the room I sat on who they represent, and I saw where the students sat, and other people representing other entities.

Councilmember Adams: Actually, I just sat where there was an open seat.

Mike Mahan: Yeah, so, you were correct, there was a group of, but there were less students there at the University of Evansville. In fact, there was about three in the group that we were in that were students.

Councilmember Adams: The point that I’m trying to make was that the majority of attendants, I thought, were students.

Mike Mahan: Well, since they took attendance, and people, you know, put their names down and everything, you could check simply with a phone book. That’s the only answer I could give you.

Councilmember Adams: Well, I could descend pretty easily what a student is and what someone your and my age is.

Mike Mahan: I happen to have a son who’s 30 and he’s a student. So, you never know.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah.

Mike Mahan: But, one thing–

Councilmember Adams: I didn’t see any 30 year old students there.

Mike Mahan: –let me ask you, bring up one point that you made, and then I’m going to sit down. You haven’t taken attendance of who’s here tonight. So, you don’t know who all these people are. I would think you would want to take attendance so you could make a follow up if you would have any questions concerning who’s really concerned about, you know, the consolidation. Thank you.

Councilmember Adams: Thank you, sir.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Mike. Manfred, is it Stahl?

Manfred Stahl: M-a-n-f-r-e-d, S-t-a-h-l.

President Winnecke: Thank you, sir.

Manfred Stahl: There’s been quite a few speakers before me that did a good job of covering some of the points that I was going to speak on, so, I won’t redo some of those. But, we’ve been kind of told by supporters of this consolidation that if we go with this plan that it will enhance development in the county. Well, I think they’re right, but the county, it’s probably gonna be more enhanced is similar to what happened in Indianapolis. The county’s that going to be, to have their development enhanced will be Henderson, Warrick, Gibson and Posey.

(Applause)

Manfred Stahl: I understand the purpose of becoming one, rather than two like we are right now, but some of that is to garner grants from state and federal, and some of it is to garner assistance on different projects, but we have to also realize that a lot of that funding is being cut back. So, I’m not too sure of this extra expense that we’re going to have to switch over to a different type of government. It’s going to come out in the end as being a win-win. At the present time we’re doing well with the County Commissioners and the City Council, they seem to be able to handle problems. Nothing works perfect, but at least it works well, and it has for many years, and it’s had good checks and balances. So, I would hate to see that gone, and then if we do consolidate into one, we kind of lose that identity and that infringement, or I can’t think of the right word, of what we have as an individual community or neighborhood within this county. Also, with the at large candidates that can be put on this Council, this new Council, we kind of lose that even more. I kind of think that maybe we’re going to be throwing the baby out with the wash water if we’re going to change when we have something that works well. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thank you, sir.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Frank Coleman?

Frank Coleman: I just want to thank each one of the Councilmembers and Commissioners this evening for, again, letting us be here. For the lady who spoke about having some of the university workers, I am a senior at the University of Evansville, and for the past three and a half months I’ve been studying this issue at length until my eyes bleed at midnight. It’s an issue that should not be taken lightly. To reference Mr. Shively and Mr. Thompson, I agree that the law enforcement part of this proposal should be removed. It’s working, that part is working right now. I say we continue to leave it as it is. With the stresses that the law enforcement and the low morale that Mr. Thompson had also talked about, this would eliminate a lot of their stress, so they can get back to doing their jobs at full capacity. I’m all for that. The, some of the findings that we did, is we also compared, independently, studies from IUPUI, Butler, and also the University of Louisville that consolidation while it is a fairly newer idea, even though it was proposed back in the 70's to Evansville, I think just recently has come to its height of information accessibility. I believe, as a proud homeowner and Vanderburgh County resident that I think it’s our number one priority as residents to inform ourselves, and then make an informed decision that way. I think that putting all speculation and emotional comments and trying to wield in voters to take a side, I am going to remain objective on this issue and just simply inform the voters on what our findings are. If you would go to the Vanderburgh government website, vanderburghgov.org, you will find two very lengthy lists. These lists are of all of the different offices in county and city government, and you will find that most of these are duplicated on that website. I encourage each resident to see that, and go on there and just see how many different offices are in the county. Overall, consolidation in the cities that it is working in, and, again, we are not to compare our city to say Indianapolis, we are a very unique community, and I believe that we need to be created as such. Job growth, long term, is going to occur. Job growth, long term with the less bureaucratic red tape that many, if you’re a, small business owners that are trying to expand your business, I’m sorry, it’s very, very difficult to acquire all of these permits and go back and forth. My heart hurts and bleeds for you, but I would like to say that with this consolidated form of government that would help alleviate a lot of those stresses of the small business owners, which is a large part of where our Vanderburgh County residents work in. This will help create more businesses. You know, our country was formed on ideologies and ideas, and I think I see a lot of people out there with a lot of good ideas on how to bring new businesses to our area, and I encourage you, if you are considering creating a business that you would look very deeply into these documents that the joint commission has given us. The plan for consolidation can create jobs, long run or long term job growth is what we seek. We don’t seek small spurt, temporary jobs. I think a lot of us have families, a lot of us want to be able to work, and even though we’ve all taken a pretty hard hit with maybe pensions or 401K’s, that with this consolidation method it allows for more long term careers to be developed. Again, through small business owners creating new ideas and inventing new ways of being able to employ Vanderburgh County residents. Again, on term limits, I would say on term limits that what we have found overall, I am a Political Science major, so, I try to remain as objective on these issues as I can, term limits, we are voters, we decide the term limits when we elect someone into office. You know, if we don’t like the job that one of the Councilmen or the Mayor is doing, then we vote them out of there. That’s how we do it. That’s how the American way is, okay? I just want to again reinforce, this is a very lengthy document, if you’re not able to read there are assistant programs for hearing impaired and visually impaired and other disabilities that are offered by the county, and also by USI and several of our higher learning centers. I very strongly urge that each citizen here really read into it, and if you have questions about it, ask. That’s the only way that we can ever learn anything. So, thank you very much for your time this evening.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Frank.

Councilmember Adams: Sir?

Frank Coleman: Yes, sir?

Councilmember Adams: I would ask you to define for me what you and your studies have found with long term? Because certainly the study from the University of Louisville had a four year window before and after the consolidation and did not show economic growth.

Frank Coleman: Correct.

Councilmember Adams: If I read those graphs correctly.

Frank Coleman: Right. The University of Louisville, for all who are here, it did not show increased, immediate increased growth, however, in that study, there was a projected job growth of 20 years that was projected, and, again, I don’t now who are forecasters–

Councilmember Adams: And what the assumptions were.

Frank Coleman: Yeah, but for a 20 year plan it said that it was supposed to, it is to increase job growth by about a rate of about 11.3 percent, okay? Does that answer your question, sir?

Councilmember Adams: No, it doesn’t answer my question.

Frank Coleman: Okay, the a–

Councilmember Adams: The question that I asked was, you suggested that there were studies from–

Frank Coleman: IUPUI and Butler.

Councilmember Adams: –thank you, and what was their window in terms of the study? Because the Louisville four year actual data did not show economic growth. Now, maybe, I can project, assume, whatever you want, you know that and I know that, and it can go up, down or sideways, and, certainly, for the last two years it would have gone down, but it’s transient. Tell me, what other studies showed the kind of economic development that we all want, there’s no question about that, what was their window, the other studies?

Frank Coleman: IUPUI’s window was six years, and Butler’s was five. IUPUI’s strictly looked at the development of Indianapolis and consolidation. Butler actually looked at Nashville. The varying states, and that really plays the largest part in consolidation, is the different states. Indianapolis is continuing at a very, very marginal rate right now to grow, with a couple of new plants that have come back, but, overall, again, I think that Evansville is a very unique city, and I think that we should observe other cities within the state to look at for our model.

Councilmember Adams: Can you send me the studies from Butler and IUPUI?

Frank Coleman: Yes, sir.

Councilmember Adams: Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ll give you my card after.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Frank.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Just a little housekeeping item. I’m reminded that there is still plenty of water in the back, just outside the door. Those folks would be happy to pass it around if you want any. I have just a few more of these. If there are others out there, pass them forward, and, again, everyone will get a chance to speak. Just walk them up and give them to someone on the end to pass them forward. Next, is Bruce Blackford.

Bruce Blackford: Bruce Blackford, B-l-a-c-k-f-o-r-d. I’m the President of Vanderburgh County Farm Bureau. We have roughly 4,600 members in Vanderburgh County. I’m glad to see some young people involved in speaking to us tonight. I don’t agree with several of the things he said, but I’m glad to see him out here. Also, I’m glad I’m on this side of the desk and not that side. You guys have got a hard choice to make, and one of the things that I would like to talk to you about, we’ve heard a lot of good issues tonight, but one of the things that I would like to talk to you goes all the way back to the beginning. The committees of voting having two separate votes. We’re talking about merging two different entities, the county, the rural areas, non-city, and merging the city together, and, but we’re only having one vote, so the majority rules. We’re not having two separate votes. I would like to look at Boone County. They have just went through a merger where they did have separate votes to keep everybody involved, and to keep them engaged so they did not feel disenfranchised from the process. When you look at Vanderburgh County and what we have done, we put a reorganization committee together that only had three people on it, I believe, that was from outside the city limits. So, from the beginning the rural areas, or the county areas have had a disadvantage in putting this plan together. Basically, we get the feeling our vote’s not going to count, because the city is going, it’s two to one to the rural areas. When you look at our voting, and then our taxes are probably going to go higher with the proposals and the different studies that have been submitted. This is going to cause a problem in the rural areas, and I think we need to look at rejecting this plan and starting all over, or just forgetting about it.

(Applause)

Bruce Blackford: I think the lack of having two separate votes, and no safeguards in a mechanical way of amending this proposal, once you guys pass it and it is voted on, there is no way to change....well, it isn’t an easy way to change it, the very transition board can say we like this part, we don’t like that, we’re going to do this. So, what I voted yes on, or I voted no on may be a completely different proposal when it’s all said and done. I think we need a lot more detail in how the service districts are going to work. We’ve heard a lot about annexation, and we need to have a written plan of how it’s going to impact us so that every individual can be informed on making a decision on how it’s going to impact every, single person. We have seen that the studies show very little cost savings. The city and the county already is working well together in a lot of different areas. We’ve already merged our school systems, we have got our court systems and our library systems already work together. So, we’re already ahead of the game in a lot of areas. There’s some areas that we can work together in to form more government that works together to save money. Ms. Heiman said that, you know, we largely, we’re already largely kind of have consolidated, all we need to do is consolidate the government. I think our founding fathers chose three forms of government just so we did not have that problem. I mean, that’s basically having, you know, we’ve heard the kind scenario and everything else, but by having different forms of government, a County Council, Commissioners, City Council and a Mayor, we look at having a slowness and a process that takes time to work out things. That’s good for us, as the one person mentioned was the baseball games that we have had, or the baseball fields at Roberts Stadium. You know, if it would have been one Council, it could have went through very quickly and very little public input in on this. Mr. Shively mentioned the fact that by increasing the size of the county or the city we will be able to have more tax revenues coming in, which would be less for everybody. I don’t know anywhere in Vanderburgh County that they’re not being taxed. I would like to know, because, if you’re, everyone’s being taxed, so if you bring more people in, they’re still paying taxes, it’s still going to be divided out or you’re taking from the right pocket and putting it in the left. So, my conclusion is that with the proposal that we have, and with the lack of control on a mechanism to amend this plan, or the lack of the county to have much input into it, and the higher taxes that we’re looking at, and only two people on the Common Council board from the rural area, our voice will be almost non-existent in this future possibility of a new plan. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bruce.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Ron Adler?

Ron Adler: My name is Ron Adler. It’s R-o-n, A-d-l-e-r. Just as a very rural Vanderburgh County resident, just reading through it, through the proposal, I just feel just a lot of, I don’t want to say gray areas, but a lot of left out things. Maybe I don’t read through them right, but it seems like you read the proposal, the extreme rural areas, and, I guess, I don’t know if there’s a difference between the city limits and outer, but I feel like, if it’s consolidated, I feel the, how does Vanderburgh County, I mean, I realize everything’s Vanderburgh County, but the rural, or out of city area, and I’m talking like maybe your Ag policies, I mean, nothing’s really mentioned a lot. If you, if things were to be consolidated, you know, I did read some things about adopting a lot of the city policies and ordinances, and I don’t know if a lot of that works, say 15 miles or 20 miles to the very north of Vanderburgh County, if you will. You know, maybe I feel like we’re going to get left out on being represented a little bit out there. You know, maybe we feel like that now, being that far out sometimes, but I do seem to think, I feel a little more connected with a three, say a three Commissioner Board. If I have a concern, or just your average rural, your rural people, you know, I just think it’s, you feel more connected with your Commissioners, because you get to read about them, you know a few of them, once in a while one of them is actually from our neighborhood, compared to more, I mean, I’m looking at it from a county-city. You know, our Mayor, I’m not that connected with, because that’s more a city thing, and, I guess, my thoughts are, if I’m still out here and we have a Mayor running everything, I feel a little left out. Another thing, you know, as far as considering this proposal and reading over it and being familiar, I think a lot of our neighboring counties, and maybe a lot of people in our, in the whole State of Indiana, and maybe some neighboring states, are going to watch what goes on here. So, I think it’s important that this proposal is thought through, and, you know, Vanderburgh County, I’ve always been proud of the, maybe not every little issue, but they’ve done a lot of good things, and, you know, they’ve been here 150 plus years. I feel like maybe you’re, to consolidate you’re throwing 150 years of county government that I’ve been proud of, I wasn’t here a 150 years ago, but while I was a voting member, I guess, I just feel that the county needs an individually or an identity, and maybe we feel we’re going to lose that a little bit or something, you know. So, I just, there’s just, I had a chance to, you know, read over this, and thank you for having a public hearing where I can, you know, say what I want to say. But, you know, it just seemed like a lot of the townships, your wards, your, it seems like that’s going to go away a little bit, and, I mean, right that’s how we do, we are able to, you know, communicate to our higher government. So, you know, I just, I hope, I just, I feel a little apprehensive, I guess, to do away with what we’ve had, what Vanderburgh County’s had, and I’m including the city on Vanderburgh County also, But, you know, I just feel like you’re throwing it away and going to start with a new baby, and, you know, to me that’s a little bit scary. I hope everyone considers that when you, you know, decide or vote or talk over this proposal. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Ron.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: J.D. Strouth?

J.D. Strouth: My name is J.D. Strouth. That’s spelled, J-D-, S-t-r-o-u-t-h. I come before you as a resident of the City of Evansville. I’ll limit my comments to my primary concern with the consolidation proposal we have. That is in the interest that it be fairly adopted. I understand currently that there is no separate voter rejection threshold of the City of Evansville and of the area outside of the city. Without that separate voter rejection threshold, it would allow for what would be considered a hostile takeover by the city of the area outside the city. Most entities that I know of that talk about mergers, they merge by consent of the parties to be merged. This would not be the case necessarily in this current proposal. I understand from the committee that the voter rejection threshold is outside the bounds of the committee, that they had no ability to insert that into the proposal, is my understanding. So, my suggestion to you would be, is that you reconsider the ordinance itself, either rewrite it or revise it to insert separate voter rejection thresholds so that it must be adopted by majority vote of those inside the city as well as those outside the city. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Thanks, J.D. Jeff Day?

Jeff Day: My name is Jeff Day. I would hope that I don’t need to spell my last name, but it’s D-a-y. On the way in here this evening I had someone who I don’t believe I’ve ever met in my life ask me if I was for this consolidation or against it. I told him I was against it. He then assumed that I lived outside the city. I don’t. I live inside the city, in Mr. Friend’s ward, just north of Central High School. I mean, yes, just north of Central High School. When I look at all of you folks up here, I see a problem. I only see two Republicans. The rest of you are Democrats. Now, me, I just want to point out, that the people that as a rule that are against this consolidation see it that it’s more government in the hands of fewer people. You cannot hope to win as a Republican and support more government in fewer hands. It’s that simple. This is a bad plan because it puts more control in the hands of fewer people. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Thanks, Jeff. Jayne Buthod?

Jayne Buthod: Good evening. My name is Jayne Buthod. J-a-y-n-e. Last name is B-u-t-h-o-d. I had several pages of things to say, several of them have already been uttered by other people. So, I’m going to skip ahead to just a few things. As a Vanderburgh County resident, and I mean rural now, city, center city for over 30 years, one of the constituencies I have not heard referenced during our discussion today is what will happen to the center city. All of the statistical research that I’ve done, and it has been extensive, a lot of reference material tonight on the Louisville study, which was objective, indicates that suburban power increased, the money followed the suburban power as it moved outside of the city. That happened in Nashville, it happened in Ft. Lauderdale, it happened in Indianapolis and Jacksonville. So, there’s a lot of history showing what happens there. You decrease the representation in the center city by dilution, you send the money and the power and the information out to the suburbs. What happens to the center of our community? I spent a lot of years working with United Neighborhoods and social work and community development, that population is going to have fewer voices, and more silent voices. That concerns me deeply, because a lot of our energy and our money is about keeping the center of our community strong. So, that does alarm me. The other part of the Louisville experience that we keep referring to is because we used the Louisville experience as a rah-rah, it was the center, it was the billboard, the cheering squad for why this is a good thing. Granted, the person who’s doing a lot of that sharing is a political candidate for higher office now, he has a vested interest in making sure that there’s no buyer’s remorse about the merger in Louisville. But, if you look at the statistics about what happened to the economics, there, again, it’s a four year study before and a four year study afterwards, but there is no statistics that back up economic development. The entire concept of shaking things up by having, excuse my voice I’m losing it today, of having a merger or a consolidation was about the idea of basically psychological change. We hope that things will get better, we think we’re going to have economic development, but what we’re going to do is, one of the quotes is we’re going to “It’s a city of pride about itself, that we’re now big enough so that we can start thinking about ourselves as big.” It’s all conceptual, it’s all marketing, it’s slick. We have in Vanderburgh and Evansville and everybody has said it here, we’re unique. We have succeeded in doing joint activity on any number of occasions. We can do that now. We’ve already, if we don’t do that, it’s simply a failure of will. We have no problem with our sense of history about making those merged activities a part of our government. Excuse me just a second, one of the things that I found intriguing about the Louisville study is this idea of marketing, they decided to call themselves the 16^th largest city after this. You saw that, Dan, didn’t you? According to the Census Bureau, they were really only the 27^th? But, if you repackage yourself it doesn’t matter what the truth is about. So, and no reflection on all of the people in this community that want economic development to come here, they’re doing what they know to do, and merged or not merged, it isn’t going to make any difference, because the amount of abatement money that you have as tax incentive is going to be the deciding factor. So, if you hold a big enough carrot, you’re going to have people come from surrounding counties or surrounding states to locate. If it’s a problem with the city and the county arguing about who gets the political credit for bringing in a new business, get over it. I basically think the whole thing about the merger, at this point, it’s artificial. I didn’t go into my studies with a preformed opinion. I really expected that merging made sense, it sounds really solid, but when you look at the statistics, you look at, I’ve studied three onerous books of nothing but charts and graphs, and several other studies, and there isn’t anything to back it up. If we want to feel good about ourselves, let’s just decide to do it. Let’s stop spending, we’ve spent $100,000 now, and we spent what, $3,000 at USI and $3,000 at U of E, you guys had a really big conference at the 4-H Center for the county, right, for the rural people? But, no money was spent for that, right?

Unidentified: We didn’t have any to spend.

Jayne Buthod: Okay, you could see why people would be a little frustrated, if they feel like the money is already going towards promoting it in the city, but when you get the rural people, we don’t really want to talk to them enough to actually pay the bill to have them show up. Even though, as far as I understand, there’s 98, or $95,000 of the $103,000 or $108,000 spent, so, there’s still some money. So, that’s another issue for you guys to decide. But, I just, we’re messing around with things that work for various dubious benefit, and that’s my concern. So, thank you for your time.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Thanks, Jayne. Jim Memmer?

Jim Memmer: Jim Memmer. That’s M-e-m-m-e-r. There’s a lot of issues with the whole city-county merger recommendations that I am opposed to or have problems with, but the single biggest factor that I’m concerned with is the fact of the simple majority vote, up or down, for the whole concept. When I brought this up at previous meetings, it was basically laughed off by a couple of the council or the committee members that were all county residents. Well, I understand that we are county residents, but we also are a little different in population as far as what we expect and what we have. As a county resident, I don’t call Animal Control when I have, you know, skunks or racoons, you know, I deal with it. We’ve got gravel roads, we don’t have trash pick up unless we arrange it. So, it’s a little different mind set. It feels like we’re being taken over. It feels like a hostile, it does feel hostile, actually. I’m okay with it if we could just take it to a vote, however it comes together, if it’s fairly represented. Several people have mentioned this, about the idea of having the rural residents vote it up or down, and the city residents vote it up or down. To me that has a lot of merit. That is, I understand that’s what defeated it in the past, so there is a lot of opposition to putting this forward. The other thing that, it was my understanding that the committee was to do a study, not really promote this idea, at least that’s what I was told in the presentation. However, as the slides come up, there it says, Evansville unite. Now, to me, that’s not an objective representation. There’s obviously people that have, you know, an agenda, they’ve got a dog in the fight. I understand that. We all do, but at this point, my biggest single concern is that county residents, and I mean rural county residents, have a voice. For that, I would like to see it have two separate populations, both have to vote in favor. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Jim.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Taylor Payne?

Taylor Payne: Good evening. My name is Taylor Payne. I know many of you well. Thank you guys for being here to, as the evening wears on to hear a story from an old, not quite totally worn out ex-politician. You know, I’m not here to comment relative to the particulars of the plan. I’ve read it in the paper, and tried to follow, as best I could, but I would comment on a couple of points. The one point about the rejection threshold, the last gentleman spoke well on that issue, I thought. I don’t agree with those comments, and the thing that I would say simply on that, I think about that in two ways, one is there’s three Commissioners here tonight, and they all were elected by a county-wide vote. So, that vote wasn’t the rural residents, and then those that aren’t rural residents. It was county-wide. Then, secondly, the funding of the county, again, is a county-wide process. There isn’t any funding of the rural county and a funding of the non-rural county. So, it would seem that appropriate and fair to take that concept to any referendum as well. The second thing that I would comment on is, there’s been a, you know, comments about, yes, this is a good idea, or, no, it’s not a good idea, and some folks, I think, have really tried to insert into the dialogue it’s a mistake to let this go forward to a vote by the people. I don’t know when anything is a mistake to let that go forward and be voted on by the people. So, I encourage you, whatever plan formed there is, let this go forward, and let the people make the appropriate decision. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Thanks, Taylor. Emmons Patzer?

Emmons Patzer: My name is Emmons Patzer. That’s E-m-m-o-n-s, P-a-t-z-e-r. I live in Mt. Pleasant, which is outside the city limits. First of all, I would just like to thank everybody, not only on the committees, but the members of the audience speaking, this has been a very forthright community discussion. I’m proud to be a resident of this community, be it city or county in its definition, now or in the future. So, I would like just to thank everybody, that I’m pleased the way that it’s being put forward. I do want to comment on a few clarifications. First of all, I think Bill Jeffers may be the professional manager that we want, if we choose that form of government. He did an excellent job of explaining some of the details that need to be worked out. I think that’s where I would suggest that this group think, think very carefully. I would also like to comment, just for a second, on the Chamber’s points. One of the Chamber’s points is they think that this is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread to bring economic development to the community. I will tell you that in the past five years I have been involved in the launch of over 25 new products, new brands or new companies. All of which have been successful, barring one product that’s a little iffy. Whether this body is consolidated or not consolidated would make absolutely no difference to whether I would locate those companies or brands here. So, economic development as a reason for consolidation, I’m not really sure. You better ask some business people that actually start new businesses, because I think that’s being pushed and it’s not necessarily real. I would also like to point out one clarification with regard to the appointments. If you look at point 8.3, a majority of all appointments shall belong to the Mayor, and if you also look at point 8.4, the appointments report to the Mayor, all boards and commissions and authority departments currently reporting to the Mayor or to the County Commissioners. I would also point out that 8.5 that they all get dismissed and immediately get re-appointed by a strong Mayor. Now, that may or may not be your intent, but that’s pretty questionable. The other thing that I would like to point out is, the fundamental goals that Dr. Adams had read out, there’s several of them that stand out for me; efficiency, simplicity and clarity, to encourage community participation and fair and equitable distribution of costs. You’ve already heard a lot of communication about the Beyond the Rhetoric: Lessons from the Louisville Consolidation. I tried to send out, about a week ago, to as many of you as possible, a meta-analysis done by the University of Tennessee. I don’t know if any of you received that? I have a copy here that I can leave afterwards. That report was done in 2007 by the Municipal Technical Advisory Service Institute of Public Service for the University of Tennessee, and it was titled, The Pros and Cons of Consolidation. I’m going to read just a couple of them to you, but I really encourage you to read all of them, because I don’t want you to take my comments selectively biasing what I’m going to say. Look at all of them. With respect to the pros, one of the pros that they list is efficiency. However, they state there is a perception that a consolidated government will be more efficient, services delivered at less cost than will be separate city and county governments. However, this may only be a perception. A number of studies have been done in this regard, and the results are mixed. In other words, efficiency of consolidated government has not been demonstrated or verified empirically. Okay, just so you have the facts on the table, this is from a meta-analysis looking at about 75 consolidations. The reason that that becomes important and what the message that I have for you, is when I work on a business, I distinguish between what I call a whim and a wish. The difference between a whim and a wish is clarity of path. I’m not saying you can’t get efficiency, but if you don’t have clarity of path, you’re not going to get that efficiency. Now, I also noted that I’m currently a resident of the county, not the city, and, so, I want to make a point on pro that’s listed with regard to expanded services. New and expanded services will likely be provided to areas not previously served. This is because a fundamental goal of consolidation is to introduce a greater degree of service provision to a larger area. In effect, the level of service experienced by a city will be expanded to the county in order to give the county, bring the county up to previous city levels. It should be noted that this may be a negative aspect for city residents, because many of their resources may be funneled to provide services to county residents. So, that point is simply this, you’re hearing a lot from the people in the county, I’m from the county, now, it’s been nice to hear some of the people in the city speak also with regard to the mechanism that you found, but the key point is there may be a reallocation of services that is unintended, meaning that there will be a spend that will take monies from the city residents and bring them out to the county residents to equalize services. If you don’t do that, you’re going to run into problems from the county residents. If you do do that, and you maintain service levels within the city, then forget the efficiency question, because you’re going to have to spend more money. I’m going to pull up three cons, or two cons from the study. Number three, level of service/reduction of service considerations. As mentioned earlier, a large governing body with a number of members elected from the county, or a general services district, will decide what services would be provided and at what level. Thus, city residents who are accustomed to and demand a given level of service may be unable to guarantee their service level demands are met. So, just so that the County Councilmembers understand, the allocation does not necessarily (Inaudible) in your benefit either. The most telling piece, and I want to reflect back on the goals, the fundamental goals that were put forward; efficiency, simplicity, clarity, encourage community participation, and fair and equitable distribution of costs. If you try to wrap up those three things into one end measure, what would it be? I would say it would have to do with citizen satisfaction. So, point four in the cons, citizen satisfaction with services, research has been conducted to determine if citizens in consolidated jurisdictions are more satisfied with services than citizens in similar, non-consolidated jurisdictions. The results of these tests are mixed. Most show that for certain services citizens are equally satisfied, but for many more services they are more satisfied in non-consolidated jurisdictions. So, if your intent is to deliver the benefits that you set as goals, read this study. It’s a meta-analysis looking at 75 similar situations. Roberta noted that you can take any study and you can make any interpretations of it etcetera, etcetera. That’s why I’m telling you to turn to a meta-analysis that looks across multiple studies. I’m also suggesting that I have experience in reviewing such studies, I have carried out over 10,000 primary research studies in my career. So, I’ve reviewed this, I believe it’s a fair representation. You look at it and draw your own conclusions. But, the key message that I have is the point of clarity of path. The difference between a whim and a wish is clarity of path. You’ve heard a number of inputs today, and I’m going to give you a couple of my own. One of them is not going to be popular with the FOP or with Mr. Shively, and that’s the debate on the Sheriff and Police consolidation. What I would ask you to do is to turn to the facts, because if you pull down the county budget and the city budget from the county website, the combined website, and you look at expenditures, roughly 25 percent of the total expenditure of the county budget is on the Sheriff’s Department. More telling than that, is that if you take out and look at it as a percent of discretionary spending, if you look at it with the context where certain monies are put against the Commissioners, certain against the Council, those are basically things like insurance, property, debt obligations, if you take a look at the Sheriff’s Department in the context of discretionary spending, it’s almost 40 percent of the county budget. You can look at similar numbers with respect to each of the city budgets as well. The other thing that I would ask you to do, when I talk about the whim versus wish point, is start going into detail. I mean the detail in the budgets is just an example. I want detail on ordinances. If you pass, if you’re going to pass something, if you’re going to ask the public to engage in this process don’t leave big, gaping, open holes. Make it clear, make it a pathway that everybody believes is going to add to the success of the community, and you’ll get the community’s support. It’s as simple as that. Any business that I launch, lives and dies by appealing to people who want it. So, my key point in terms of messages are, it sort of speaks to the last presenter, do you bring it to the public for a vote or don’t you? The question isn’t whether you bring it to a vote, the question is what you bring to the vote. You have an obligation as leaders of this community to bring something of substance of a tangible nature and mean it. If you bring that to the population to vote, that’s perfectly fair. I agree with the last speaker that the public should vote, but the public doesn’t engage in this process to the depths of study and the depths of investigation that people who bring their leadership skills to it. You have that obligation to this community before you bring it to a vote. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Emmons.

(Applause)

Councilmember Adams: I can’t agree with you more from what you just said. I would really appreciate it if you would electronically send to Lynn Buhr that meta-analysis. There are some minor problems with meta-analysis, at least in medicine.

Emmons Patzer: Uh-huh.

Councilmember Adams: But, it is an excellent way of taking a huge look at a great number of selections from different policies and so forth. So, could you give her your e-mail address, or so that we all can get an electronic coy of that meta-analysis, because I think that’s a very strong statement. Thank you very much, sir.

President Winnecke: Russell Lloyd?

Russ Lloyd: Thank you, Commissioners and Councilmembers. I’m not going to read this whole thing, but I’ll just hit on the highlights. I would also like to thank the committee for their time and effort in doing this plan. I thought they put in a lot of work, and it’s certainly an impressive work product. I would like to thank our citizens who are taking the time out to come and voice their opinions. If you would move forward with this, hopefully there will be some amendments, and that’s something that you have to diligently look at. I went through and just highlighted some areas. If you would look on page one, and what I wanted to point out, I’m just an individual County Councilmember, former Mayor, so, this is not seven members of the Council. They all have their own opinions, so, this is just my opinion. Article one, under partisan elections, I would be in favor of partisan elections. Under Indiana law we do have partisan elections for local government. One of the things you can think about, political parties do recruit, assist candidates, new candidates especially that you wouldn’t necessarily get in a non-partisan election. In non-partisan elections, a lot of times we see name i.d. is maybe more of a factor, but, I think, the political parties certainly assist individuals looking to run for office, and there’s a network, local, state, national that the political parties provide. Article two, executive branch, under executive officers, I think there was, at your last meeting there was talk about the possibility of the Common Council approving the Mayoral appointments. I would not be in favor of that. I think, I know from serving as Mayor, it can be difficult to recruit people for city and county government in the managerial positions. A lot of times the pay is not such, as opposed to the private sector, and then if you told this individual, well, we’ve got a good looking job for you, but you’ve got to go in front of Council and answer questions, that would make it more difficult. So, secondly, the Mayor would not have any kind of veto over Council appointments, so, why should the Council have a veto over Mayoral appointments? That could lead to a rancorous relationship between the executive and the legislative branches. Hopefully, our government employee policy would take care of if people needed to be disciplined or removed. Next, page two, article three, legislative branch, number of members. I know you have discussed adding members, instead of the 11 that was presented. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think more representation might be a good thing for the community, but I would support having some at large members. I think, if you have a Mayor or executive that’s at large, county-wide, that you also need some Councilmembers at large, county-wide, where they’re not just thinking about a representing a district of people, but they would be looking at the whole governmental body. Adding districts wouldn’t be a problem, but I think you need some at large as well. Then, I didn’t put it on here, but, obviously, I hope the districts would be redrawn, and Mr. Jeffers could be a big help using the new census data. We really need to do that, try to even it out a little bit. Article nine, consolidation of city and county departments under law enforcement. A very contentious issue, but I agree that they should be combined. I don’t care if it’s under the Sheriff or under the Police Chief, although there’s a case to be made for the Sheriff, but I think that you’re going to, as the gentleman that just spoke pointed out, there’s a lot of cost in law enforcement, both in the city and the county. They’re a huge chunk of our budgets, and I think there could be some synergies if you do have a combined law enforcement. If you don’t combine law enforcement, then I think one of the rationales in the study was whether you would continue the two tiered rates for the sewer out in the county. One of the rationales for eliminating that was the combination of law enforcement, because the city residents are paying for City Police and County Sheriff, the county residents are only paying for Sheriff. So, I mean, that was one of the arguments on the two tiered rates, that it costs more to take those pipes out to the county. On the Sheriff’s Merit Board, which is item 9.42, somehow we have the Sheriff and deputies having five members on that board, and four for the Mayor and the Council. I think that should be reversed. I think the civilians should have control of that maybe five to four. Then, finally, on the appointed boards, commissions and authorities, it may not be your role, but, I think, at some point, some of those boards really need to be looked at whether they could be eliminated, combined. Fifty nine boards, that sounds like a lot, that’s a lot of people doing a lot of the public’s work. I know that the committee was studied just to keep all of the boards and move forward, so, I just made a couple of recommendations; item 12, Commission on Social Status of African American Males, I recommend the numbers be reduced. I think it had 15 members, maybe too many. The Public Library Board of Directors, for some reason they only recommended one Mayoral and one Common Council appointment, I would suggest two. I know right now County Council has two, County Commissioners have two. The Safety Board, I would recommend add two board appointments by the Council. Public Works Board, I would recommend adding two appointments by the Council, so that you would have three Mayor, two Council. Then the Water and Sewer Utility, I would recommend, right now it’s five by the Mayor, I would recommend three Mayor and two Council, so, that, I know, the Councilmembers get questions about the utilities quite a bit. So, you would have some input there. The only other point that I would like to make, some of this is, these boards, part of it they are set up by state law, and what could be done, if the plan would move forward, set legislation to enable the boards to be set up so that you would have that taken to the legislature where they could correct these, like technical things. So, that’s all I have.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Russ.

Russ Lloyd: Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Wendy? Russ?

Councilmember Bredhold: As long as we’re back on the boards for a moment, actually, Councilman Lloyd, you actually don’t have to come back for this.

Russ Lloyd: Thank you.

Councilmember Bredhold: I’m really glad that Mr. Patzer brought up 8.4, because now I understand where people are getting the idea that all of the appointments are made by the Mayor. The title of that paragraph is all appointments report to the Mayor, but what it says is that all of those appointments that currently report to the Mayor or to the County Commissioners, being the other executive body, will report to the Mayor of the Combined Government following the effective date. So, that is a misleading topic, and I understand why there were some people who thought that that was the case. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Cynthia Maasberg?

Cynthia Maasberg: I am Cynthia Maasberg. It’s C-y-n-t-h-i-a, Maasberg is M-a-a-s-b-e-r-g. This evening I address you as a director of the Vanderburgh County Farm Bureau, Incorporated. My comments tonight are not new to the process of reorganization, but rather they’re being presented to you tonight as background of Farm Bureau’s involvement with the City-County Reorganization Committee since May of 2010. Just as a little background, our organization, at the state level, provides professional staff to assist counties on issues affecting rural needs and their communities. That professional staff consists of financial and tax specialists, legal affairs team, state government relations experts, a public relations team, along with other staff that shares years of specialized experiences. I share that with you as background, and to inform you that many of those state professionals have monitored and provided feedback on the reorganization plan. In fact, many of them have traveled from Indianapolis, and they have attended both the reorganization committee meetings, as well as the sub-committee meetings. Many of your local Farm Bureau members have been in attendance at the majority of both the committee and the sub-committee meetings. So, we are very aware of what is taking place. During the entire reorganization process, Farm Bureau has been in attendance, as I said, in both the reorganization committee meetings and the, more importantly in some respects, the sub-committees, because that, in many cases, are where actual decisions were put together and then brought forward. Tonight I distributed to each of you two documents which were presented previously to the reorganization committee. Since the majority of you, and I say that because I was in attendance at many of the meetings, that many of you were not there. I do not recognize your faces. I ask you that you carefully review these documents, along with a letter that was presented to you at the March 14^th joint City Council and County committee meeting. The first document in your folder is a letter that Farm Bureau initially presented to the reorganization committee, and it was dated May 6, 2010. So, you can see that we’ve been involved a long time, almost from the beginning of that committee. It presents the concerns adopted by Farm Bureau at our policy resolution meeting. The second document given to you this evening is a summary of a public information meeting that was hosted by Farm Bureau on December the 7^th. Since, and I believe I’m correct when I say none of you were in attendance at that public meeting, I would like to provide some background about the meeting. Farm Bureau was approached by a member of the reorganization committee and asked to host an informational meeting. We agreed, and the meeting took place at the Vanderburgh County 4-H Center with over 180 concerned citizens. That number of attendees far exceeded the, and I want to say less than 25 people who were present at the two sessions that were organized by the reorganization committee, and which, as a sidelight, they paid $3,000 to present. Farm Bureau did ask the committee to be reimbursed for our expenses, and they refused. Farm Bureau felt it was important to the county residents to have a public information meeting outside the city, and away from the two universities that the reorganization committee planned. So, we proceeded and we absorbed all of the costs. We feel the public’s response of over 180 people versus 25 at the reorganization committee meetings should be an indication that there are a lot of concerned, non-city and the suburban residents. Since only six of the reorganization committee members actually attended the Farm Bureau public input session, we recorded all of the public comments, and we provided a comment card to the audience for those who were not able to present verbally that night. After the meeting, all questions, comments, concerns were summarized, and you have been given that summary tonight, organized by section and article of the plan. The same summary was presented to the reorganization committee, however, it was not addressed in any public committee meeting, nor was anything changed from public input that was collected at the meeting. Farm Bureau hopes you will take a more interested approach to the public’s questions, comments, concerns by reading our seven page summary, and strongly considering those items. As stated at your joint committee meeting two weeks ago, Farm Bureau recommends that the plan be rejected, for there are too many problems for you to fix. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Brenda Bergwitz?

Brenda Bergwitz: Brenda Bergwitz, B-e-r-g-w-i-t-z. I hadn’t planned on talking or anything, so it won’t be very long. But, first of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for letting us come, but the main reason I want to thank you is you didn’t put a time limit when we first started. We are very grateful and very appreciative of that, because the comments that the people did have was going to be longer than three minutes. Again, thank you. As you can see by my t-shirt, you know, I am against it, I live in Vanderburgh County. We lived in Evansville 15 years, then we moved out in St. Joe, we’ve been out there 35, but, there again, I am against it. I just think that still things need to be done. I lost my train of thought for a second, but, anyway, just thank you all very much. Thanks, there was something else that was important, but I’m getting tired, like we all are. We should have brought a sack lunch, Missy.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Brenda. I don’t have any more slips, but if there are other folks who would like to speak, if you would just sort of.

Brenda Bergwitz: Oh, wait a minute, I know what it was. It was important. No, it is important. You know, I’m not running for an office or any of that kind of stuff, but just in the last three years, I, as a citizen, have gotten involved and coming to your meetings, as you know. I’m getting educated, and I, a few months ago, in fact, it was when I was in California, Curt John made a comment to the Courier that We the People were coming to the meetings so we could be on t.v. Well, I didn’t even know, except for when like the t.v. people were actually here in person, that it was on that Channel 9 or whatever you call it, okay? But, so, if we are on Channel 9, I hope so, what I want, now, what I’m saying is, I want to challenge the people of Evansville and Vanderburgh County to start coming to these meetings where the City Council, County Council, Commissioners or whatever, if you don’t start coming to these meetings how are you going to know what is going on? We vote the people in and we hold each and every one of you accountable, but if we don’t get involved and come to the meetings and see what is going on, then it is our own fault if we’re in the situation that we’re in. So, I challenge each and every person in the county.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Brenda.

(Applause)

Pam Locker: My name is Pam Locker, it’s L-o-c-k-e-r . I wasn’t planning to speak either, but listening to all of this passion tonight, and all of these arguments, pro and con, I can see rational arguments from both sides. You know, it’s obvious that a lot of people have thought about all of these issues, but, to me, I guess I don’t understand how a county area of less than 200,000, what are we 180,000 people, can’t function with one level of government? I just don’t get it. We’re not Manhattan, we’re not Louisville, we’re not Indianapolis, but it seems to me that we should all be able to get along and function as one government. I don’t understand, I do understand, but don’t understand the concern about more taxes. You’ll pay for what you receive. There will be service districts. I personally believe, and maybe I’m wrong, but there seems to be a lot of evidence in favor of the fact that we would be able to present ourselves better as one community, if we had one government structure. I’ve heard people testify about having to go to different county and city officials in order to do anything, if they come into this community. It seems like to me that that’s a valid argument. You know, no one can say whether taxes are going to go a little bit higher, but, you know, I pay taxes....I’m sorry, but, I pay taxes, if I have to pay ten dollars, and I pay taxes that support people that live in the county outside of Evansville, and I live in Evansville. But, you know, some of those taxes are benefitting the people who live outside of the city limits. If my taxes go up ten dollars a year, is that really going to harm me that much? Maybe I won’t go to one movie. I mean, I don’t, I think that there hasn’t been any strong evidence or statistics presented as to how high those taxes would go up. And, I guess, basically, that’s all I have to say. I think that the people of Vanderburgh County deserve a right to bring this to a vote.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Pam.

Mike Wilson: Good evening. My name is Mike Wilson. M-i-k-e, W-i-l-s-o-n. I have property in the city, a little out in the county, a lot in the city. So, you know, I think, if you was to take away that pot of gold that’s out in the county, I don’t think too many people would be in favor of this. But, there’s a huge tax base out in the county that is not being serviced, you know, it just, to me, I don’t understand at all why that has not been spoken to. I don’t think the county residents at all are in favor of this. In fact, I’m going to stick my neck out on the line here, and I would like to see a show of people that are in favor, anybody that’s in favor? Those opposed? I think that’s the way it would go if it was voted on two votes and not a common vote. The, there was a commercial a few years ago, some hamburger chain had out and it said, where’s the beef? Where’s the beef? What I want to know is where’s the savings? You know, and, if we’re saving, you know, are we really, is this called government downsizing? I would be in favor of that, but I don’t think that’s where it’s going to go. I think what we’re going to have is somebody that’s going to be able to sink their teeth into a lot of beef that’s sitting out in the county. That’s all I have.

President Winnecke: Thank you, sir.

(Applause)

Mike Wilson: Yes, sir, Mr. Adams?

Councilmember Adams: You knew, my friend, that I would have a question for you.

Mike Wilson: Yes, sir.

Councilmember Adams: It’s a tantalizing question. What would happen if the city dwellers didn’t pay their county taxes?

Mike Wilson: Well, I would imagine the Treasurer would come after them.

Councilmember Adams: But, I think the county would be in big trouble, without the city dwellers paying county taxes. We’re all county dwellers. I think that’s the important point. If we took away the money that the city dwellers contribute to the county, I think the county might be in big trouble. Just a thought.

Mike Wilson: That’s an interesting point.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah, you and I will talk about it later.

Mike Wilson: Okay.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah.

Mike Wilson: Anybody else?

President Winnecke: Who else? Let’s get the folks who haven’t spoken.

Steve Schaefer: President Winnecke, President Watts, members of the Commission and City Council, Steve Schaefer. I work for the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana. I also live outside the city limits. I wasn’t intending to speak tonight, but I’ve been working on this issue for a long time, and I may need security after the meeting, because I was one of the ones that wrote the actual state statute that we’re operating under. So, it was a very complex statute. It was interesting because the Farm Bureau was right there, supported the statute, the process that we’re working under. So, it was a diverse group that wanted this statute that communities were able to work under to reform local government. You know, just a couple of points. The two listening sessions that were held at the universities, Dr. Adams, you were right, it was interesting, because a lot of the public didn’t show up. It was mainly college students. It was interesting sitting in some of those rooms with some of these individuals, because these were college kids, you know, most were studying Poli Sci, that didn’t have a dog in the fight. You know, I’m with the Chamber of Commerce, I support consolidation, no bones about it, but listening to some of the college students comment on the plan and the concept of city-county consolidated government, it was interesting. There were statements such as, it would be much simpler, there would be more accountability, there would be clarity in government. These were from individuals that weren’t bogged down in the politics of the community on either side of the issue. They weren’t outside the city limits, they weren’t, you know, they didn’t have a dog in the game. So, I thought it was very interesting, and, hopefully, those comments from those listening sessions will be able to be shared with all of you as well. You know, there’s one thing that I do want to point out, in terms of representation, the plan that’s before you that has the 11 member Council, you know, sure you can increase that. I think it’s right, as Mr. Jeffers has said, to redo the maps, and those should stay put, you know, after the referendum is approved, but when you look at the current representation that we have, if you’re a county resident and we’re all county residents, the Commissioners, I think you represent about 58,000? Is that about right? 50,000-58,000 residents per district. In this plan, and you serve the function of an executive and a legislative function for county government. Under this plan there would be 11 members, eight districts, each of those districts would represent 20,000, around 20,000-21,000 individuals. So, representation on the legislative level gets much better. It’s much better for all county residents, more accountability. If you look at the County Council that controls fiscal matters, I believe each district that they have is about 40,000-43,000 residents. So, there’s no argument, this plan you would have better representation. There are less people living in the districts that are represented. I’ll have to point out, in our current form of county government, our County Commissioners, the three of you, do any of you live outside of the city limits? No? In our County Council, only one County Councilman lives outside the city limits. So, duh, with consolidation the Council districts that are laid out, two representatives on that Council will be outside the city limits. They will have the ability for an additional three at large to come from anywhere in the county, potentially living outside the city limits. Also, the opportunity for the Mayor, the chief executive, to live outside the city limits. So, there is no debate, no matter which way you cut it, representation gets better with this plan of reorganization. You know, Evansville and Vanderburgh County, the first time this was brought up in our community was 1959, a long time before probably a lot of us were born and ever heard of the concept, but this issue has been debated, discussed, it’s been on referendum one time, and that was a simple majority vote, county-wide, county-wide referendums that’s the way it’s done, gaming, EVSC, strategic plan, township assessors, it’s all been done county-wide, simple majority. So, you know, the idea that we should follow the federal system, the way that you change the U.S. Constitution should be applied here, simply does not apply, because local government is governed by State statute and the Indiana Constitution. To change the Indiana Constitution it takes a majority of the legislature and two consecutive sessions, a majority of those sessions to be then put on the ballot and then the public has the ability to vote on it. Guess what, it only takes a simple majority for that to be ratified for the Constitution. So, those are just a few points. We shared a letter with you on several other issues, partisan elections, the county-wide threshold and so forth, the representation. So, I’m open to any questions, if there are any. I know it’s getting late. So, I simply appreciate your time.

Commissioner Melcher: This is not a question, but since you wrote it and now everybody knows who wrote it–

Steve Schaefer: Well, one of the individuals.

Commissioner Melcher: –why don’t you go on and explain more about, just so everybody understands how it works, about the signatures, how many it took to get the committee started, and how many signatures are required to go and have the vote no matter what we do? So, why don’t you explain all of that so that everybody understands what could really happen.

Steve Schaefer: Okay, well, the way it started, you know, this process can start two ways, the legislative bodies that want to reorganize can do it themselves, or it can be citizen led, and that’s the way this process was done. Five percent of the voters in the last, in the previous Secretary of State’s race, five percent of those voters sign a petition, they start the process. That petition, all it does was sent a petition to the City Council and the County Commissioners. They had a decision to make, proceed or not proceed, you know. So, there was another made by elected officials to proceed with this process. So, the process has taken place, you know, a year has gone by, the study has been proposed, accepted, and now the legislative bodies, once again, have the opportunity to make changes, as has been said many times, you can modify it, send it forward, you can do nothing. There is a mechanism, and legal counsel would probably have to help me with this, but, I believe, if nothing is done there is a mechanism for a petition of citizens, of residents, to, I think it’s five or ten percent.

John Hamilton: Ten percent.

Commissioner Melcher: Ten percent.

Steve Schaefer: Ten percent, to put it on the ballot.

Commissioner Melcher: And, that could have happened in the beginning too.

Steve Schaefer: I don’t think so. No, because that’s–

Commissioner Melcher: Because that’s the way I understood it.

Steve Schaefer: No, to force it on the ballot it would have to be, the two legislative bodies would have to do nothing.

Commissioner Melcher: Okay, so, if that’s correct, the citizens brought it to us by what it is.

Steve Schaefer: Yes.

Commissioner Melcher: Then, all they need now is to get another five percent more to get it on the ballot, no matter what we do.

Steve Schaefer: Yeah.

Commissioner Melcher: That’s what I wanted to get on the record.

Steve Schaefer: Commissioner Melcher, you brought up a good point, you know, when the petition process was going forward, I think the League came forward at one of the meetings, and I think you asked the question, you know, how many of these signatures are from residents outside the city limits.

Commissioner Melcher: No, I requested it, but if it didn’t come with outside, that I wouldn’t support anything.

Steve Schaefer: Well, my point was that they reported back that there was a good majority, or there wasn’t a majority, but there was a good split in 50-50 in terms of residents inside the city limits and residents outside the city limits that signed the petition. And, there’s copies of that if anybody wants to see it.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Steve.

Steve Schaefer: It was verified by Susie Kirk, the County Clerk. So, it’s public record.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Steve.

Steve Schaefer: Appreciate it. Thank you.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Bill?

Bill Kramer: Hello, my name is Bill Kramer. That’s B-i-l-l, K-r-a-m-e-r. I just want to ask everyone to consider thoroughly what we say and what we contribute to these meetings. A gentleman shared that he, you know, talked about the where’s the beef commercial, and he wants to know where the savings are. That’s a good point. I remember that commercial. I think it was 25 years ago. One thing, and I don’t know if this was Lloyd Wright or Ronald Reagan, because I have to quote Reagan a lot, they were building a building and they were digging with a steam shovel and they bring it up, let’s say it was New York City, it might have been Chicago, and the guy looks and says, that steam shovel is going to put a thousand men with a shovel out of a job. The guy says, or 10,000 people with a teaspoon, it depends on how you look at things. Okay? We have to keep this in perspective. When I was a kid, we went to high school, we drove by where Eastland Mall is, it was a corn field. It’s not a corn field. Things are changing whether we like it or not. Now there’s a lot about consolidation that scares me. There’s a lot I don’t want. I agree with Frank Coleman, the law enforcement, that’s something that I would be very hesitant, we’ve got some great members of law enforcement here in our community, and I strongly think we need to consider their opinions first and foremost, and we have a lot to consider. I’m not providing all the answers, I’m asking everyone to think and let’s be cautious about these matters, but we also have to consider that 25 years from now, what are we going to be doing? Are we going to let consolidation happen by accident? Or, are we going to guide it? You know, I’ve seen the signs, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I like to use that slogan myself, but I also, I own 23 vehicles, I change the brakes before the metal grinds. I change the struts before the tires are worn down, okay. We do have to be proactive in the decisions that we make and how we guide this community. Every single one of us that’s in this room, okay, and, again, I’m not trying to sell the idea of consolidation, because it scares me, okay. I like to be cautious. I don’t want to be rash about this, but how many of us live in the county, when we’re in Louisville or we’re in, you know, Miami on vacation, and people say where are you from, and you say Evansville, Indiana. Pretty much every one of us. I’ve traveled quite a lot, and everyone that I know that lives in our county, if they’re traveling on vacation they tell their friends that they’re from Evansville, or they get letters postmarked, it goes to Evansville, Indiana, even if they live in the county. Okay, we do consider ourselves to be one in the same. The difference is, yeah, we can have different rules on burning our trash or something, okay. As time goes by, the lines, the distinctions between the two are blurring, and I’m not saying we should erase those lines, I’m saying we need to be calculated in how we deal with those lines. I say if somebody that lives in the county wants to have a goat, let them have a goat. I say if the Sheriff’s Department wants to be the one that deals with the goat, and the EPD doesn’t want to have to, okay, I say that’s let’s find a way to direct the ship so that we can still accommodate and work with the course as it’s going with what’s working, but let’s also be proactive to consider what’s going to happen, what’s coming up next and what issues we’re going to destroy ourselves or we’re going to bring more disaster if we don’t take care of them now, and, you know, change the brake pads now before the metal starts grinding.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bill.

Bill Kramer: Thank you. Dan, any questions?

Councilmember Adams: No.

Bill Kramer: Okay.

Councilmember Adams: I’ll let you go this time, Bill.

Charlene Braker: Yes, my name is Charlene Braker, 1700 East Blackford. Of course, I didn’t mean to speak either, but a couple of things were mentioned tonight, one about Evansville being a unique community. I think we all agree with that, but, then later on someone said, a group of young people, college students, they didn’t have any dog in the fight. Well, I mean, I don’t know that I want them making all the decisions for my unique community. I mean, they can have some input, but I don’t want anybody making major decisions who doesn’t have a dog in this fight in this unique community. You know, I really don’t care, I mean, most people maybe not feel like, I don’t care where somebody lives that represents me. I really don’t. I don’t even care how many people are on the Council, how many people are on the Commissioners, I don’t. I don’t care if, I would like to have 15, but, you know, that’s the decisions that other people need to make. What I’m concerned about is are they honest? If they’re dishonest, what do I do about it? Does my vote count? Where do I come in? Because we’ve been through this, we’ve been through the arena, nobody wanted it, but it still went through, that’s exactly how most of these people feel back here. It doesn’t matter what we think. We want to know that we’re important. You guys don’t give enough information in here that we know we’re important. We don’t know how to control. If something happens that’s out of our control, what do we do about it. We don’t know, we don’t see the checkpoints, we feel like we’re being used, and I live in the city. I’m not talking about the money, I’m just talking about we’ve been through so many things in this community, and we feel like we’re not heard. We’re scared, because we know there’s going to be more money. We’ve had this major arena, now everybody here knows there’s no parking. Somehow or other there’s going to be parking ten years down the road, and at some point there’s going to be parking for this arena, because we’ve got to make it work. We will make it work. Now, where are we going to get the money for this parking. We know it’s coming down the track. That’s what most of us are feeling like. It’s our money, it’s our pocketbooks, we don’t know where it’s going and we don’t know if we trust you guys. Because we don’t know what kind of input we have. If we knew that we were important enough, that all of the things would be brought before us and we knew, we could trust, we would feel a lot better with consolidation, because eventually it’s going to happen. We know that, we’re not stupid. I mean, we can’t live in a major city and not grow sooner or later, but we don’t feel safe. We don’t feel like we know where our money is going, or we’re going to have a vote. I don’t know how to remedy that. All I know is that feeling of insecurity, transparency. It’s called transparency. How do you get it? I don’t know, but, you know, we don’t need to go through this again. We don’t need to tear up this community again. We need to do things with a group that we know our vote counts and our money will be used effectively. I think that’s the main thing that we want to know that our money is going to be used effectively. I don’t even think that it’s that we disagree with consolidation, just tell us how it’s going to be done. Tell us truthfully where our money is going to be spent. How it’s going to be spent. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Charlene.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Brent and then....go ahead.

Brent Grafton: Brent Grafton, G-r-a-f-t-o-n. After the proceeds of this evening, I’m about ready to let John have this job. I really appreciate you guys being here, and taking the input from the public. I would encourage, when you go out in your company and you’re going to do a project, the President picks out a team, the team, the President’s the one who picks the team. The team puts together the plan. Well, in our case, our Mayor has picked out a team, the team has put together a plan, and now you have it before you. I would encourage that over the next few months, as you’ve begun this evening, that with, I recognize a lot of skill here, politically, a lot of you people have done a very good job of representing our community for a very long time. You now have an opportunity to give us everything you’ve got, because it’s that important. We’re not just talking about the residents of Evansville, we’re talking about the residents of Vanderburgh County, we’re talking about the million people that come here for all kinds of things that surround our community. So, I would encourage you to take this thing apart, and the thing that actually goes back to the public look very different than the thing that you’ve seen presented tonight. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Brent.

(Applause)

Frankie Niedhammer: Good evening. I’m Frankie Niedhammer. I’m F-r-a-n-k-i-e, N-i-e-d-h-a-m-m-e-r. I’m President of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers Association. I’ll get a little closer. I wasn’t planning to say a whole lot tonight, but in listening to the people talking about the city and county, I live in the county and have since I was six years old. The, my home I’ve lived in 50 years. My neighbors, or several of them are City Policemen. I don’t know how long it takes them to get from where they live to a site if they’re called in, but I would make a bet it’s 30 minutes. So, maybe they want city to come out so it’s a little more convenient. There were comments about the city taxpayers paying county taxes. They do for the Sheriff, but we don’t have a city jail as such. The Sheriff manages the jail and staffs it and takes care of all the prisoners. So, that’s a big expense for the city prisoners and the county. That’s one of the things. I learned today that those subdivisions out behind me, down the road where Steve Schaefer lives and others, are not considered the same neighborhood as I am, even though there’s two lots here and all this is subdivision. Very different category, and they’re all new people, and they move in and out, in and out, and in and out. So, they’re not really county people. I grew up with the farmers, and we had cows in the backyard, which was about six or seven acres, and it’s a different environment entirely. In some of the cities that we have been hearing about, like Lexington and Nashville, they have had different reasons for deciding to push consolidation. In one case they had annexed so many small parcels around the city that they actually had small areas that weren’t annexed, kind of enclosed, by areas who were, but they didn’t have any of the benefits. So, it was easy, because they had grown out so far that there wasn’t much county left. It’s not like Vanderburgh where we are really divided, where there is a lot of rural, empty, open areas that aren’t going to be developed for a long time. The corridors along 57, 41, Green River, I-164, there will be development there, but most of it isn’t. The benefits aren’t going to be coming here just because we consolidate. We’re not going to get new businesses coming here and say, wow, Evansville and Vanderburgh County consolidated, we want to move there. We’ve already consolidated the Assessor’s office, the Treasurer, the Assessor and the Auditor work hand in hand so that there’s not a big problem dealing with them. There’s no reason the other parts of government can’t do that without consolidation and changing the way our government is run. There’s too much power, this has been said many times, in too few hands under this program. It really needs to be shaken apart. I don’t think it can be fixed. I don’t think it was put together securely. It’s got too many nuts and bolts that are loose, too many panels that are shaky, that you can’t tighten it up enough to make a cohesive plan out of it. It might have to go back to the workshop for about another ten years. It would be, one thing is for certain, Evansville can only grow west and north. There’s nowhere to go east, except up along the Warrick County line. So, you’re going north, it’s going to happen in time, but just to gobble up the outer part, and, my personal opinion is, one of the primary motives is because it broadens the bonding base. There would be more tax dollars available to pay off bonds. Whether it is something like happened in Indianapolis where they built the arena, they couldn’t pay for it, and now we are paying to the CIB in Indianapolis to help pay for their arena. We pay state taxes to pay for it. I’ll never set foot in it. I resent it. I don’t like paying for things in the city that I’m not going to use, but the fact that we owe so much money already in Vanderburgh County. What are we about $800 million, we’re reaching the billion dollar mark, and we still have to do the combined sewers, which the people in the county didn’t have anything to do with. You’re going to have to borrow money, and there we’re going to be with everybody’s going to get stuck with it, and it’s going to be, the only way you can borrow it and keep up the rating is by having more people that are paying taxes that are going to make the payments, that will guarantee they can be paid. That’s why people want to loan money to counties and cities, because they know it’s backed up with tax dollars, but you can only squeeze so much out of a beet, then it’s just going to dry up on you. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Frankie.

(Applause)

Janet James: My name is Janet James. I’m President of AARP. I’m President of Poplar Grove Neighborhood Association. I’m parish nurse, something else, and I’ve forgot what it is. I have those senior moments too. Usually I bring notes, when they were talking earlier, when this first started, I was gung ho for it, because, boy, if we’re going to save money, I’m ready. Then I got to talking around and I got to thinking, I went to a meeting with the Police Department and the Sheriff all in the same night and they gave their opinions on things. The more I thought about it, I got to thinking back in my history, you’re all probably too young to remember Leslie Irvin, and I know Dan wouldn’t because he wasn’t from Evansville, but the Junior Sheriff Patrol found his car across the road from my parent. My dad worked second shift, a brother a stepmother and three sisters were at home. He was their next victim. If they hadn’t got the Sheriff, my family would be wiped out. With our city patrol officers in the city, they’re all over creation, they’re helping people everywhere they can. They’re also apprehending a lot of criminals. They are good with the neighborhoods, they give us meetings, they come and talk to you, and they know if there’s problems in that neighborhood they take care of it. They’re there for us. I don’t want to see them broken into two groups, leave them with the heads that they’ve got. If we don’t like the Mayor appointing those heads, then make it a law that we vote for who we want. The Sheriff Department did, and that’s how I didn’t get elected on the last voting thing. Four of my children wanted to vote for Robert Goedde, and my neighbors did too, and it’s a precinct. Well, the Republican won the precinct, anyhow, I didn’t get my vote because my kids were voting for the opposite party, but the thing was, when they said, mom, we want Robert Goedde, we don’t want this Sheriff. I said you’re over 21, you work for a living, the American Constitution says vote for who you want. Next time I’m going to keep my mouth shut, but that’s rare. The other thing is, the more I’ve listened to this, and that article in the paper that explained every bit of that, I read that thing ten times, took notes, and everything, and I usually try to never miss a meeting with the County Council or City Council unless I’m sick or in Indianapolis for some stupid reason, but I had a hard time understanding all of that in the paper. I yellered and rewrote it, went downstairs and copied it on the printer and everything else what this thing was supposed to mean. Tonight, I’m truly against it. I truly am. Any questions?

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Anyone else? Chief?

Brad Hill: I’ll be very brief. I figure this is a public comment, so, I’m government, so, I should wait for the public to be finished. As has been said here, we’re pretty fortunate in this community to have two outstanding law enforcement agencies, both brown and blue. I’m certainly in favor of progress, and in favor of change when I can see that’s it’s going to be of value, but in this case, I really don’t see the value that’s going to come from an overhaul of law enforcement. We’re pretty fortunate to have a very good crime rate here in this community. As I said, I don’t feel like we need an overhaul. I think Sheriff Williams and I would both agree that we both need to look at our departments and see how can we improve it, and we do that. We should always do that, be looking at how we can improve. We’ve combined things, between us, combined our computer systems, combined our joint task force for narcotics. So, we’ve done some of that where it made sense, but, as I said, I don’t think this makes sense to combine us and to tinker with something that’s working pretty well. I think what we’ve got here, this plan, basically matches, I think, Mr. Watts, you mentioned that it looks like the Indianapolis plan, and it is the first Indianapolis plan. When they combined law enforcement, they combined it under the Sheriff. As I’ve talked to many people that are in law enforcement up there, the word that’s most often used is disaster for that. It was very difficult, and ultimately it has been changed now where the Chief is over all law enforcement. But, as you look at the, all over the country, you generally have a Sheriff’s Department and a Police Department. Even with the predominant ones that have been combined under consolidation, you still have a Police Department, and you still have a Sheriff’s Department. I think this is one of the things that could kill the consolidation is the current plan that’s in place for law enforcement. Thank you very much.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Chief.

(Applause)

Eric Williams: It’s his fault, because I was going to stay in my seat. Do what? I was going to stay in my seat. First and foremost, thank you for, all of you, for being here tonight and sitting through this and listening and taking serious consideration to what I think is an opportunity for our community. I appreciate the hard work of the committee that was put together, and I think they were put together with probably a lack of guidance sometimes, and I think they came together very well, and they did do lots of research. They did talk to lots of people. I’ve attended lots of meetings. I think there are a few points that I just wanted to make. Number one, I get quoted all of the time as saying all is well, leave us alone. That is what Chief Hill and I said in the first meeting, and we were told that we were to find a plan to consolidate law enforcement. We do have two stellar law enforcement agencies in this community and we’re very fortunate, because we do work together. Even though it was portrayed that the morale is down because of this issue, I don’t believe that. There have been some incidents, but for the most part the people are doing their jobs the way they’re supposed to and the way they would be expected to do. But, all is well, is not consolidating, it’s not looking for opportunities to do things better. Just as Chief Hill said, we have consolidated some things. I look at this as an opportunity to move that forward in an even greater direction, because we found that that did make sense to consolidate certain things. We just didn’t do it all the way. This is an opportunity to go all the way and consolidate the entire thing. This isn’t about Sheriff Eric Williams. The day this would take effect on the current timeline would be the day after my last day in office, and I am term limited. So, I can’t run again. I would never leave this agency, but I do think this agency is the right answer for our community. I think it might be problematic. It is a very emotional issue, which tells me that it is very important to the people how their law enforcement is delivered to them, because they are used to having very quality people, very quality services. Because of that emotionalism, or that desire to have strong law enforcement, it’s one of those issues that has to be part of a....we’ve talked about leaving the law enforcement piece out of this. I think Mr. Thompson, D.J. Thompson, from the FOP kind of hit on this, leaving it out is different than leaving it alone. Leaving it out means we don’t address it and we leave it to the Indianapolis model. The Indianapolis model was done by the legislature and not by the local citizens. This is an opportunity for the local citizens to weigh in and do this. Leaving it alone means we put into the charter that law enforcement will continue as it is today, and we would leave it alone. We don’t leave it up to future Councils, or strong Mayors, or strong Sheriff’s, or weak people to make those decisions. It is what it is, and that is the way it will remain. That’s a lot different than leaving it out. That is leaving it alone as it is today. That is what Chief Hill and Sheriff Williams said that first meeting, to leave it alone. However, leaving it alone doesn’t offer any opportunities to do some real contemplation of finding efficiencies and streamlining an agency. I heard earlier tonight saying about well we’ve been leaders in lots of areas, I don’t know why we should stop being leaders. This is another opportunity for us to set the model for the rest of the state and to move forward and lead, and that is by creating one single law enforcement agency that services this entire community. We’re not talking about a takeover, we’re not talking about a merger, we’re talking about a consolidation, taking the best practices of two great agencies and making a new agency that would be the envy of the rest of the state and would serve this community very well. There are great people in both agencies. I believe that, and I think the people in both of those agencies are very capable of doing that. The reason though that I bring up the leave it alone thing, I think there are other issues, if we are prepared, and I heard numbers thrown out about the size of the budget and the comparative of what law enforcement takes up of that, if we’re willing to sit here and talk about consolidating things that, by my account, aren’t broken, I don’t believe city government is broken by any stretch of the imagination, nor do I think county government is broken by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this is an opportunity for us to rethink how we’re doing it, do a little preventative maintenance. I tried to think of an analogy earlier, before the meeting, for somebody on how I viewed what we’re doing, and this may be good, it may be bad, I’m not sure. I look at this opportunity as we’re a family, we’ve got two sedans that have served us very well, we’ve driven around a lot in them, but we’ve had a couple more kids, and the whole family can’t ride in one sedan anymore. So, we trade in both of our old sedans, which are servicing us well, and we get a new minivan or something else that’s a little more efficient, a little better gas mileage, but the whole family can go together in it. We didn’t say the others were bad, but we needed something different to get us into the future and to provide what we wanted to do, where we wanted to be. I think that’s pretty close to how I look at this. But, if we’re willing to do that with our leadership, with our Councils, our Commissions, I can’t imagine we would look at a plan that wouldn’t include the two biggest budget items in both of those. It would seem to be, it wouldn’t make much sense. One of the reasons that both of these agencies work very well right now is because we go to different funding bodies. I answer to the County Council and the County Commission, the City Police Department answers to the City Council and the Mayor. If we were to combine everything else but the two law enforcement agencies, that would leave a county elected Sheriff with the Police Department or a law enforcement agency going to the same funding body as the City Police Department. We’ve already recognized that there are current disparities and there are current differences. I think that would create a situation of turmoil. The Police Department would have to run it’s budget through the Mayor. In this plan, the County Sheriff, as an elected officeholder, representative of the people, has the authority and the ability to go straight to that Council for its budget needs and its funding. I think that is paramount to a lot of issues that would force the Council to step in and try to rectify those things, and it would be at the hands of a Council that is dealing with that as a problem as opposed to this is putting together a plan. I think that brings us problems. I did say leave it alone, and I still think we have two excellent agencies, and if leave it alone is the choice and that is in the charter, I think we can live with that, but I think we’re missing an opportunity to do something great and show leadership in our part of the state, and show the rest of the state how we do business in Southern Indiana and Evansville-Vanderburgh County. As a lifelong county resident, part of that time being inside the city limits, I think this is good for both bodies. With that, I would answer any questions, but I think this is a great opportunity.

Councilmember Bredhold: Sheriff, you made an interesting argument in your plan that you presented that, tell me if I misunderstood this, no matter how much work we ask you to do, you’re paid the same because your pay is determined by the state. You don’t only have this Constitutional role, but also the state determines your salary.

Eric Williams: As of January 1 my salary was set by statute.

Councilmember Bredhold: Okay, is the exact number set, or do they give you a range?

Eric Williams: It’s a percentage of the County Prosecutor. So, if the County Prosecutor’s Association can manage a raise out of the state, then my salary would go up with that, but mine is fixed on the Prosecutor, who is fixed on the Judge.

Councilmember Bredhold: Okay.

Eric Williams: So, it’s actually up to the Judges group to get themselves a raise through the state, then the Prosecutor gets a raise, then I get a raise.

Councilmember Bredhold: It’s interesting how it all works, really, when you get into it.

Commissioner Abell: You’re not in (Inaudible. Microphone not on.)

Councilmember Bredhold: Right, so, this Common Council that’s created will have no say over how much you’re paid?

Eric Williams: Correct.

Councilmember Bredhold: And we’ll determine how much work you do?

Eric Williams: I guess, that’s accurate. My work is set forth in the Constitution and the statutes, however, please know that I was not in favor of that legislation, because I think it’s ridiculous that a local officeholder who works for local residents and is paid by local dollars doesn’t have to negotiate his salary with the local elected officeholders, but that’s not how it worked out.

Councilmember Bredhold: Okay, I’ve heard some people say that if the Police were to take over this consolidated law enforcement, that you might be reduced to being a glorified jailer. You would be paid the same as if you would be were you to be running a consolidated law enforcement agency.

Eric Williams: Based on the statute, that’s accurate.

Councilmember Bredhold: Okay, thank you.

President Winnecke: Thank you, Sheriff.

Eric Williams: Thank you. Have a good evening.

President Winnecke: You too.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Are there other folks who haven’t spoken who would like to get up to speak?

Mike Reininga: I really shouldn’t be up here. If my speech teacher in high school had given me the grade that I deserved, I would still be taking classes and working on my diploma. My name is Mike Reininga, R-e-i-n-i-n-g-a. I live out in the county just north of Darmstadt. I can pretty much echo most of what’s been said against consolidation. Oh, by the way, I have no association with law enforcement. It’s just, I agree with what the Sheriff says. It’s a pretty looking shirt, and the price was right. I had some dealings with consolidation when I worked for CSX, I got moved to Jacksonville, Florida, of course, Jacksonville’s consolidated. The first piece of advice that I got when I moved there was live outside Duval County, because it’s consolidated. Your taxes are high, and it will be cheaper. So, we moved to Clay County. I think, if it happens here, that’s the same advice that many new residents will be getting, based on the taxes. The consultant that the committee hired, basically spelled that out. I realize it’s not set in stone, but it’s maybe something to go by, they said, a $42 decrease for city residents in property tax, an $84 increase for county residents. Now, what do the county residents get for that $84? Absolutely nothing. Why are the city residents getting a cut? When you look at things like this, you kind of have to go beyond the rhetoric, and not even get into the details of the situation. You want to ask why is this person promoting this? Why is this person saying this? What’s their rationale? Why is the Chamber so in favor of this when they can’t produce anything but vague studies that say this should happen if you do this, but where is the facts? If the stumbling blocks for a company to come in here and do business are so huge with the present form of government, tell me, can anyone of you tell me what one of the stumbling blocks is? That somebody that has enough sense to run a business can’t figure out how to deal with our complex form of government? Why do we have to change the whole dang thing because some guy that owns a business is too stupid to figure it out? It’s that simple. So, if the guy is that stupid running the business, do we want his business here or not? Why is the League of Voters, who’s pushing their buttons? Why do they all of a sudden decide that we need to do this? I mean, we have, I read a number of articles that Roberta Heiman was quoted as saying she had absolutely no difficulty getting signatures, that she could count on two hands the number of people that said no. Yet, it took the entire League of Women Voters 90 days to get 2,700 signatures. If she had seen 30 people a day, 32 people a day, she would have had it all done by herself in 90 days. I mean, what I’m getting at is there’s not a groundswell of public support behind this consolidation. If you think there is, you’re kidding yourself. The next step you go to is the manner in which the voting is being done. You gentlemen played a role in deciding that there should not be a rejection threshold in the vote. It took all of five to seven minutes of discussion, in one meeting, with no advance warning. I venture to guess that 99 percent of the people in the county had no idea what that even was. It is the only form of, city-county is the only form of merger, under Indiana code, that does not require threshold rejection to be enacted. Everything else it’s required. This is the only one it’s optional. The rationale was, well, we’re elected by all of the voters in the county, so, everything should be equal. Well, if we are all equal, why are we even here? If we’re all equal, what’s there to merge? There’s no difference. So, that rationale does not hold true. You can walk out through the entire county, you can draw a line on the ground, city, county. There is a difference. They are different entities, and it doesn’t matter who elects you gentlemen. That’s irrelevant. It’s who, how to do this in a fair manner, because the lifestyle, the pocketbooks of the people in the county are most likely to be impacted negatively by this. The impacts are going to be different on each group, and each group should have an equal say so, and equal is not one vote, one person. Equal is this group and this group, majority rules. Either side can take it down. There is no merger in the business, where I heard mention of hostile takeovers, well a hostile takeover is still the stockholders of each company have to vote, the majority of each company have to vote in the majority. A hostile takeover is simply where the other side slips in and buys up a bunch of shares so they can get the majority. That is a major issue to me. I think it’s extremely important, because without rejection threshold the voting is rigged. The conclusion, the decision, it’s a foregone conclusion what’s going to happen. It’s a two to one, the county rural voters are outnumbered two to one. They’ve already been promised a tax cut, then to entice some more people the county residents on sewers are promised a reduction in their sewer rates. Well, if that reduction is on the table and can be done, why isn’t it already done. What does consolidation have to do with that? It’s being used as a carrot. If they can afford to do it after consolidation, they can afford to do it right now. So, that should....when people start throwing carrots out, then you better look at what it is they’re trying to sell you and make sure you know what’s going on. You mentioned taxes, I’ve been paying taxes for, you know, thirty something years, paid school taxes, never had a kid in school. I pay for stuff that I never use. I seldom go to a library. If you want, if the city people want to quit paying county taxes, fine, we’ll cut loose all of the inmates from the county jail and let them go, you know. Simple enough. That’s no problem. I think we would make it just fine. We’ll just charge for the inmates. I think I covered the main points. I’m going to start, I’m at the point where I’m going to start rambling here, but the threshold rejection thing is major, and I think the County Commissioners that were, one of which doesn’t even think this is important enough to show his face, did a disservice to the people in this community by giving no more than five or six minutes of discussion to the topic and not holding off a vote on that topic until the next meeting to give the public a chance to understand it, know what it is and comment on it. It’s like the, this is the outcome that we wanted to get, and, by God, we’re going to get it, because we’re going to do it right now.

President Winnecke: Mike, just to clarify–

Mike Reininga: Yes?

President Winnecke: –the three County Commissioners are here tonight.

Mike Reininga: Where?

President Winnecke: Steve Melcher, myself and Marsha.

Mike Reininga: She was not in on the vote though. Marsha is innocent. Troy is who I’m talking about.

President Winnecke: I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.

Mike Reininga: I realize that Marsha is here. I’m not referring to her.

President Winnecke: Okay, I apologize.

Mike Reininga: Yeah, that’s okay. Troy, in fact, is the one who made the big deal about, well, we’re all elected by all of the voters. Well, that is true, but, again, if there’s no difference then why do you want to merge, because you are already merged. That’s all I have.

President Winnecke: Thank you, Mike.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Anybody else? We’ve been here three and a half hours. Eldon?

Unidentified: Gas is going up to $3.72 tomorrow. I just got a gas–

President Winnecke: More good news. Thank you very much. Eldon?

Eldon Maasberg: My name is Eldon Maasberg. I’m also President of Big Creek Ditch Association. The thing that I’ve been wondering, how can you justify making Union Township part of the city when just the other week it was under water? Armstrong Township, along the creek, my dad bought a farm on Baseline Road in ‘59, at that time it used to go out once in three years. Lately, since Darmstadt and 41's been building up, it goes out three times a year. Now, you’re wanting to make that city? How can you put city on top of water? That’s my comment.

(Applause)

President Winnecke: Anyone else? John, what, first, let me thank everyone for their patience and their great civility. By my count tonight we had 41 folks come and make comments. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I think it’s important, based on the input we had, not only from tonight, but from our previous meeting with the reorganization committee that these two bodies not adjourn this meeting, but continue this meeting, and I would propose that we continue it until June 30^th. I would also propose that between now and then, these combined bodies have a series of workshops, in this room, where people can come in and watch, we go through, we, much like a legislative conference committee, where we work through and see what modifications these bodies would like to make, and then we would continue the public hearing, hopefully on June 30^th, to keep the process moving. So, having said that, I would entertain a motion–

John Hamilton: It needs to be a specific date, time and place, because it’s a public hearing.

President Watts: John, do we need to do separate motions?

John Hamilton: Yes, same motion voted on by each body.

President Watts: I will make the motion to continue this until June 30^th at 5:30 in these chambers.

President Winnecke: How about in the Centre?

Unidentified: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Okay?

President Watts: Fine with me.

President Winnecke: Assuming it’s, we’ll make sure it’s available.

President Watts: We better make sure it’s available.

Councilmember Bredhold: Would that prevent it from being televised?

President Watts: That would prevent it from being on t.v. I think the people watching t.v. probably....um, John, can we, we can’t set it and change it?

John Hamilton: (Inaudible. Microphone not on.)

President Winnecke: Okay, in that case, let’s do it here then. I apologize.

Unidentified: (Inaudible) speakers on (Inaudible).

President Winnecke: Yes, and I apologize. We thought they were earlier. I apologize that they were not.

President Watts: They did go down and check with the Building Commissioner. I think they were on, they were broke. That’s what they told us, they weren’t working. So, I don’t know, but we did ask them to turn them on. So, I will make a motion to continue this until June 30^th, 5:30 in this chambers.

Councilmember Friend: Second.

President Watts: Second by Councilman Friend. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Bredhold: Aye.

Councilmember Mosby: Aye.

Councilmember Robinson: Aye.

Councilmember Walker: Aye.

Councilmember Friend: Aye.

Councilmember Adams: Aye.

President Watts: Aye. Opposed?

(Motion approved 7-0. Councilmembers McGinn and John absent.)

President Winnecke: And, from the Commissioners, I would entertain a motion at this time to continue this joint meeting until June 30^th at 5:30 in these chambers.

Commissioner Abell: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Questions or discussion? All in favor say aye.

Commissioner Abell: Aye.

Commissioner Melcher: Aye.

President Winnecke: Aye.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay. In the meantime, I will get with President Watts to schedule appropriate times. These will be open meetings for everyone to come in and listen to as to how we can get these workshops scheduled.

Commissioner Abell: Mr. Winnecke? Excuse me, could I make a suggestion that if anyone of us who are going to participate in these has a scheduled meeting like every Wednesday night, let one of the two of you know that, so we’ll know not to do that.

President Winnecke: We’ll try to make it on a regular, the same night.

Commissioner Abell: Yeah.

President Winnecke: Bruce, we are ready to adjourn.

Unidentified: How will you let the public know of the meetings between now and the 30^th?

President Winnecke: We’ll announce them in our meetings, and we’ll send out press releases. Right, this meeting is now continued.

(The meeting was recessed at 9:07 p.m.)

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Lloyd Winnecke, President

Marsha Abell, Vice President

Stephen Melcher, Member

(Recorded by Lynn Buhr. Transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.