Vanderburgh County Commission President Justin Elpers held his apple aloft, and asked those in attendance to take a bite from theirs, located in baskets across the event space. “I don't think we've done this before,” he said.
This was in recognition of The Indiana Great Apple Crunch, a program in association with the Purdue Extension and Indiana Department of Education.
It encourages healthy eating and supports farm-to-school and other local food-purchasing initiatives across the state.
“Today's apples were grown at the Evansville countryside orchard,” Elpers said.
The Vanderburgh County Commission held their 2025 State of the County Address at the Evansville Rotary Club luncheon on Tuesday, and included updates and recognition of positive programs happening in the county.
This was the first with the current county commission — specifically this was the first with District 2 Commissioner Amy Canterbury, who was elected in 2024.
Canterbury talked about Health Department programs like mobile services that among other things can educate about, and encourage sexual health.
“Our health department is making better progress in the state, once again, based on their great work, (infection numbers are) decreasing,” she said.
“They're one of two accredited health departments in the state. We should be extremely proud of that, and they are working on being re accredited again.”
She also discussed larger ongoing projects, like the rehabilitation of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Not wishing to steal the thunder of the work the County Council has done, she mentioned that Phase 1 of the project is complete. This was under $6 million for infrastructure like heating, cooling and plumbing.
The next phase is restroom rehabilitation and making the building ADA compliant.
“And we can memorialize this great Coliseum and let our veterans start to use it, and our general public.”
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Smaller “projects” included a golf cart ordinance for the county. “If you would have told me if I was going to be a commissioner, I would be signing a law down with golf carts, I would have laughed,” said Elpers. “But we had some local residents come to us, and they were concerned about the safety in certain areas of our northern parts of the county.”
He heard that children were operating golf carts on the roadways, so with the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office, an ordinance was drafted to make it legal to drive golf carts in subdivisions only.
Among the myriad topics, they discussed new Old National Events plaza management and progress on building the new wing of the county jail.
“172 beds will be added to our current jail with a mental health unit — that's been a strong push by Sheriff Robinson,” said District 1 Commissioner Mike Goebel. He said the wing should be completed by January 1 of 2027 — or possibly sooner.
The new Coroner’s Office is also being built, possibly done November of next year.
Elpers closed this address with a word of thanks to his fellow commissioners. “It's easy to come to work, it's easy to to sit down and hammer something out, and we work collaboratively,” he said. “So just want to say thanks and look forward to what we can do in the future.”
