From the Evansville Courier & Press:
It was billed as a "special news conference" to answer claims made by supporters of the plan to consolidate Evansville-Vanderburgh County government.
But when consolidation opponents unveiled their arguments Tuesday, they cherry-picked parts of pro-consolidation quotes without providing context and made a claim of higher taxes based on a long-outdated financial analysis.
Citizens Opposed to Reorganization in Evansville also pointed out that 12 percent of donations received by Yes! for Unification this year came from areas outside of Vanderburgh County — without mentioning that 14 percent of CORE's own intake came from other areas.
The news conference at local Fraternal Order of Police headquarters included a CORE-generated document called, "Clarifications about the reorganization issue."
"I don't think you ever say it (consolidation) creates jobs," the document quoted Greg Wathen, president of the Economic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana. The quote came from a Sept. 26 televised debate at WNIN-PBS9's studio.
But CORE did not include what Wathen said in his very next breath: "What you're doing is creating an economic climate where this activity takes place."
CORE trumpeted another quote from Wathen citing "no empirical data that specifically says it's (consolidation) either good or bad as it relates to economic development." But the anti-consolidation group did not include Wathen's follow-up statement citing a causal relationship and the likelihood of "improvement within the economic performance of the marketplace."
...
...
See the full article here:
