Anti-blight initiative prompts clash over riverboat funding at city budget hearing - Evansville Courier & Press
JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS ARCHIVES Evansville firefighters responded to a blaze at an abandoned home in the 1600 block of South Morton Avenue, just off Riverside Drive on September 24, 2014. Neighbors told a Courier & Press reporter at the... EVANSVILLE - A public clash over how to pay for a proposed war on housing blight in Evansville turned into a debate Monday on how boldly to strike. A top aide to Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and some City Council members argued in 2016 budget hearings that city government must seize the day. They urged the council to use $1. 5 million in newly available riverboat money next year to convert the nonprofit Evansville Brownfields Corp. Using the $500,000 annually allotted to code enforcers for demolitions, plus federal grant funds awarded for the same purpose, results in only about 70 demolitions a year, said Kelley Coures, the city’s metropolitan development director. Brownfields would acquire vacant, abandoned and blighted structures and would bank and maintain the newly empty lots and structures deemed salvageable. “And now (the Department of Metropolitan Development is) asking for another $1. 5 million this year and $2 million next year (to fund the land. Source: www.courierpress.com
