Rick Davis knows you. He said he knows the struggles faced by USI students because he was one. Davis, first in his family to go to college, attended USI in 1989 as a journalism major.
“I feel for students who work, participate, and also go to school,” Davis said. “I was your average USI student. I know what it’s like.” After working for the Courier & Press, Davis was elected as Vanderburgh county treasurer.
Q: Why should USI students vote for you?
A: I have a jobs plan that I’ve been talking about for a few weeks now.” It does two main things: “One, it puts more counselors in high schools.” Davis said they would specifically service at-risk students who come from troubled or underprivileged homes. The counselor program would also set up preparation for quality jobs after they leave school. Not all kids can or will go to college, but this program will help to ensure that they will still be able to get a decent job after high school, he said. “The counselors will continue to stay in contact and work with students a year after they graduate.” “The second part of my plan involves combining city money with local banks” to help with the “development of small businesses.” He said he wants to see Evansville’s small businesses grow and prosper but the problem is “if a small business asks a bank for a $40,000 loan, the bank considers them too high risk.” He said if we partnered city money with the money of three or four other banks, “the risk would be lowered; it’d be like a $10,000 risk instead of a $40,000 risk.”
Q: What will you do about the Mets transportation expansion issue?
A: “Well I’d have to sit down with people and discuss it.” He said he needed to learn more about it, find out how many people want this to happen and if it is even feasible. He would need to learn about the efficiencies and inefficiencies of the current system, the cost, and the effectiveness of any change, he said. “We would have to look into it.”
Q: You attended an LGBT coming out panel at the University of Evansville recently. Why were you there and what did you take away from it?
A: “They invited me, so I went. It was a great experience. There’s a lot of diversity in this city.” Davis said people that want to be treated “equally and fairly” in the community and the workplace. “Equality is something that my campaign is about.”
Q: I’m sure you are aware of the multiple Occupy movements springing up across the country, including Occupy Evansville. How do your views align with theirs and what would you do to help them?
A: “I think that they’ve done an exemplary job of demonstrating and letting their concerns be known and I applaud them for that. I applaud them for taking a stand against corporate greed, and I applaud them for doing it in an organized, respectful and non-violent manner. I sympathize with them because, well, I am the 99 percent too.” Davis said he has been adamantly opposed to Vectren’s rate hikes. “They are the highest in Indiana, and we’ve got to change that.”
Senior English education major Kim McConnell said she is not voting in the upcoming election. She said she does not feel educated about the issues well enough to make a good decision.
“There isn’t enough easily accessible information about local issues,” she said.
McConnell said the candidates need to come to campus more often and make “connections with college students.”
Senior criminal justice major Seth Green said he is voting for Winnecke because he seems “honest and trustworthy.”
“I met him a few times and he seems like a good guy,” Green said.
He said primary candidate Tony Tornatta privately supported campus voting booths, but publicly opposed them. Before losing to Davis in the mayoral primaries, Tornatta was afraid of offending his constituents, Green said.
“Winnecke supported the booths privately and publicly, he voted his beliefs and I respect that,” Green said.
Political Science Department chair Mary Morris is a Democrat, and she said she is voting Winnecke.
“Winnecke has taken the lead in pushing for Mets transportation improvement into the county,” Morris said.
Morris was frustrated with Davis because he “focused too much on the past.” She said Davis keeps bringing up the Weinzapfel-Winnecke homestead tax deal instead of focusing on the future and what he will bring to mayor’s office. She said Evansville is in a “transitional period.” Downtown is being renovated to fit upper and middle class families, she said. The housing projects downtown need to be affordable and not gentrified, Morris said.
“Our downtown is incredible because there are people with high, low, and middle incomes,” she said.
Morris said Davis has a “personal touch” with his door-to-door campaigning, he know how to connect to people.
“I wouldn’t count him out yet,” she said.
