Meet Courtney Johnson, At-Large Member of Evansville City Council
Hometown: Evansville
Age: 35
Education: Benjamin Bosse High School; bachelor’s degree in individualized studies, University of Southern Indiana
Family: Wife Annica; daughter Soul, 3; son Mars, 1
City Council Salary: $21,588
Courtney Johnson already was a busy man before running for an Evansville City Council at-large seat last year.
Since 2013, he’s run Young & Established, a nonprofit seeking to mentor and inspire the city’s middle and high school students. In October 2023, he took on a role with the Evansville Housing Authority as director of youth and community resources.
There’s more: Johnson has a life coaching business with a dozen clients, plus a company called Established Marketing, with nine clients.
Why add politics to the stack? Johnson views it as a continuation of what he already does.
“A lot of people would always mention it,” Johnson says. “I never felt the timing was right and didn’t even think that it was something that I would even do. But after serving and being involved in the community, there were a lot of things that I felt that should be done differently, or I could do a little better, I should say.”
Long focused on issues surrounding youth and education, Johnson these days is receiving a crash course in how local government works – from utilities to street maintenance to public safety. His email basket overflows with citizen questions and concerns.
Those queries cover a whole spectrum of topics. “It could be parks; it could be potholes. It could be anything that someone has an issue with and wants fixed,” he says. “I feel everybody should be heard, and everybody should at least be responded to.”
Johnson says he knows from experience what it’s like to reach out to public officials and hear only crickets.
“I would reach out and never get a call back, but at election time I would always get a call, and I would always see a lot of people knocking at my door,” he says. “I don’t think that’s how we should serve.”
About Courtney Johnson & The City Council
Courtney Johnson says one of his council priorities is Parks and Recreation, and he speaks of the needs at Vann-Pollack Park, near the headquarters of his nonprofit, Young & Established. Dissatisfied with how long it takes to address certain needs, Johnson is not afraid to take a DIY approach: “We fixed one of the baseball fences out there,” he says. “We cleaned up trash and painted a little bit.”
