About Vanderburgh County, IN

EVANSVILLE - Unlimited hydroplane boats will be tearing up the Ohio River this weekend, but Thunder on the Ohio won't be like previous years. Since it split from the Freedom Festival, the event is expected to have a completely different vibe.

Barbeque, bands, beer and of course, boats will be wrapped around Evansville's downtown riverfront. That's where Thunder on the Ohio organizers hope racing fans from all over the Midwest will hang out for this weekend's event. It's a change of course for the annual race, in its 31^st year.

"We're very optimistic," says Tom Sawyer, Chairman, Thunder on the Ohio. "We've put together a package I think that will attract a lot of people."

Boat races are the main attraction, but organizers hope concerts, barbeque and beer gardens will offer race fans more bang for the $15 button. Classic rock and country music will rock the riverfront: the Marshall Tucker Band is booked for Friday night. On Saturday, Travis Tritt and Jack Ingram are scheduled to perform.

Throughout the weekend, the Rib America Festival will take place as nationally ranked teams compete. Beer gardens will also be open Friday and Saturday nights under the Casino Aztar Pavilion.

Ticket sales are being marketed all over the Midwest, including Nashville, St. Louis, Louisville, and Indianapolis. NEWS 25 wanted to know how confident organizers are about sales since the Freedom Festival didn't attract large crowds. "We're always concerned. This is always the point where we just don't know how many we're going to sell. We just don't know," Sawyer says.

Sawyer says conditions are perfect for the races. The Army Corps of Engineers reports that the Ohio River's level will be at 14 feet, which is better than previous years.

As for the unlimited hydroplanes, a fleet of 11 boats are expected to be in the pit area. The American Boat Racing Association teams will test Saturday morning with qualifying set for the afternoon. All elimination heat and the championship finals will take place on Sunday.

Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the gate.

Source: http://www.news25.us/Global/story.asp?S=10945962

The original Evansville west side annexation plan appears to be dead.

The plan is coming up against a state-mandated deadline, and the city appears to be ready to let it pass.
City Council took no action on anything related to the annexation tonight.

The city held a public hearing on the west side annexation at a City Council meeting on June 22.
When it did that, the clock started to tick.30 and 60 days after a public hearing to take action on the ordinance.
It's going to be 60 days from Evansville's public hearing later this week.

Attorney Les Shively, who represents the people opposed to the west side annexation, said Monday night's City Council meeting looks like the last scheduled chance for Evansville to take a vote before the 60-day deadline.
"There's nothing that I think the landowners have to do affirmatively at this point," said Shively. "We'll have to see what the city's next move is."

Council President BJ Watts said he was unaware of the deadline issue.
But, he said the city plans to continue moving forward.
"As far as changing the lines that we came up with - the ma

yor and I agreed upon - to work out basically encompassing the commercial properties, I don't think there's been, there's not been a deference from that."
And, Watts thinks the city was basically required to start over anyway.

"If there's, I think the wording is 'drastic changes' in your financial plan, you have to start over from scratch. And, that wasn't an issue for us," Watts said. "If we have to start over from scratch to do it the right way, then that's the way we're going to do it."

But, Shively said the question is after letting the ordinance expire, can the city start over?
"There's not a lot of cases reported on the situation where the ordinance sort of expires under its own terms."
And, he's currently trying to figure out if he can argue that the city is about to box itself into a corner it legally can't get out of.

Shively said his clients worry the city, if it legally is able to, will continue to push new ordinance after ordinance until it gets some land.
And, then, it will use a piece-meal approach to getting the rest of the land it wants out there.

Source: http://tristatehomepage.com/content/fulltext/?cid=88751

In former years, mostly only architects or engineers became LEED-accredited as professionals with the latest knowledge and understanding of green building practices.

But as green building projects are becoming more well-known across the nation and are expected to increase in popularity in the Tri-State, the accreditation also is being sought today by policymakers, stakeholders, interior designers, contractors and their associates, and product vendors, among others.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

LEED is a rating system of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which includes industry leaders working to make green buildings more widely available.

While the USGBC certifies sustainable businesses, homes, hospitals, schools and neighborhoods, it accredits professionals who demonstrate a thorough understanding of green building techniques, the LEED Green Building Rating System and the certification process.

The LEED AP (Accredited Professional) program is administered by the Green Building Certification Institute, established with the support of the USGBC to allow for an objective, balanced management of the credentialing program.

"Though LEED accreditations have become kind of buzz words, having the accreditation does give credibility to professionals seeking clients for green building projects," said Thomas W. Blythe, a LEED-accredited architect with Evansville's Hafer Associates PC.

Most of the green projects today require a LEED-accredited professional on its team, he said.

"The accreditation is a good standard of measure for building green buildings," said Blythe.

The accreditation is provided on different levels, based on accumulating points in these categories:

n Sustainable sites

n Water efficiency

n Energy and atmosphere

n Materials and resources

n Indoor environmental quality

The LEED rating system for buildings is a voluntary, consensus-based national rating system for developing high-performance sustainable structures.

Study courses - for professionals to attain the LEED AP accreditation - are mostly self-taught via USGBC's Web site, which offers study materials and other helpful resources. Locally, the Prometric Testing and Assessment Center on South Kenmore Drive provides computerized testing for the LEED accreditation.

"Though the standardized test for becoming accredited may feature mostly multiple-choice questions and can be taken in a portion of an afternoon, it's no slam dunk," said Blythe. "A candidate needs to allow plenty of time to study the manual at his or her own pace before taking the exam."

For more details, visit www.usgbc.org or call the local Prometric Testing and Assessment Center at (812) 479-6855.

Source: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/aug/14/leedingthe-way-building-professionals-pursue/

As expected, the City Council voted Monday to reinstate a credit that will lower property taxes paid by homeowners this year.

The homestead credit was eliminated April 1, 2008, in an unadvertised meeting attended by city and county officials.

The decision sparked outrage, not only because it raised property taxes, but also because the public didn't learn of it until more than a year afterward.

In reinstating the credit for 2009 on Monday, Councilman John Friend said the bulk of the increase in local property taxes this year resulted from the decisions of state lawmakers, not local officials. His 2009 bill went up by $800 - $640 of which was caused by the state's decision to reduce tax credits dispersed throughout Indiana.

Charlene Braker of Evansville said such statements miss the point. Residents aren't as much upset over the elimination of the local credit as they are over the way it was eliminated.

"It was about not having a voice," she said.

Mike Wilson of Evansville asked how taxpayers would receive their local credit this year. Jenny Collins, the city controller, said the method of the repayment hasn't been decided, but that it likely will appear as a reduction to their fall tax bills.

Meanwhile, a question arose over whether more could be done to lower property taxes in 2010. On Friday, the state sent local officials a letter detailing a plan that would use money raised through a new local income tax to lower property taxes.

The formula, laid out by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, is a way of overcoming restrictions expected to reduce the benefit of the local homestead credit below what it was in 2008.

The first step of the plan would be to lower the county-option income tax from 1 percent to 0.95 percent.

This would be done by the governing bodies of Evansville, Darmstadt and Vanderburgh County, which together compose the county income tax council that has the responsibility over local homestead credits.

Although the statutory deadline for making such a change is Aug. 1 of the previous year, the state agency said it is "prepared to authorize an exception."

Next, local governments could recoup the lost 0.05 percent - almost $1.8 million, according to the state - by adopting a new 0.05 percent local-option income tax designated for property tax relief.

The state agency says those changes would offer about $5.06 million in tax relief while avoiding a net increase in income taxes. That amount is above the $3.3 million in credits local governments can now expect to receive in 2010, but is nearly equal to the $5.1 million they received in 2008.

"In 2009, the $1.8 million reduction in property tax relief (the reduction of the local homestead credit from $5.1 million in 2008 to $3.3 million) resulted in an increase of $1.8 million for local taxing units to spend," the Department of Local Government Finance wrote in its letter.

"If the county takes the actions described in this memo, the $1.8 million would be given back to taxpayers for property tax relief."

Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel said he and other local officials are studying the proposal.

Source: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/aug/17/city-restores-09-tax-credit/

If you take Riverside Drive as part of your daily commute, you'll need to find an alternate way to get around downtown Evansville. Starting Monday at 2:00 p.m. the road will be closed. Crews will be setting up the area for the Thunder on the Ohio event taking place this weekend. Riverside Drive and lower Dress Plaza will be closed through next Tuesday morning, August 25th. Thunder on the Ohio events begin on the riverfront Friday.