Friday, May 19, 2006

An effront to civilized peoples everywhere? Nah, just another performance by the Siamese Councilmen.

Third District Councilman Steve Price is shown here displaying shocking satellite photos that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that upwardly mobile pockets of his own council district, especially those located within the boundaries of the S. Ellen Jones and East Spring Street neighborhood associations, harbor subversive cells of uppity New Urbanites intent on bringing fancy-dancy culture to New Albany.

Along with fellow conjoined councilman Dan Coffey (seen here illustrating the maximum height of our aspirations), CM Price led the charge at last night’s council meeting to strip $10,000 from the CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) One-Year Action Plan – money that would have gone toward enrolling people from all the city’s council districts in a program called NeighborWorks – and to place it instead in the moribund dilapidated housing fund, where it might pay for one structure to be removed.

And what is NeighborWorks, which the city’s redevelopment director referred to as the "best purchase" of the entire CDBG program?

NeighborWorks America is a national nonprofit organization that works to revitalize communities through affordable housing opportunities, training, and technical assistance.

The noted political philosopher Jesus once offered a parable to the effect that it’s better to learn how to fish than it is to be given a fish.

NeighborWorks teaches people to revitalize, and the very notion is so frightening to the Siamese Councilmen (and in fairness, to all but two of the council as a whole) that now the money will go toward tearing down a house, and, naturally, there will still be no plan for what goes in its place once the decrepit structure is gone ... which is what NeighborWorks teaches people how to do.

After all, simple folks don’t really need education. They need for you to give them a fish, because that fish buys you a vote.

Right, Larry?

Perhaps Community Housing’s signature Linden Meadows project could leverage the money for in-fill housing where the demolished house once stood – but wait, the Siamese Councilmen and their affiliates have done their level best to thwart Linden Meadows, too.

And all this in spite of expert testimonySCRRAATTCHH … no, that won’t work either, because neither CM Price nor CM Coffey has ever been willing to acknowledge any useful information that comes to them from a person who has made the mistake of gaining expertise through academic or vocational study and the subsequent application of this information in the reality-based world, almost as though plain facts were foul medicines, Limburger cheese or that nasty smell you notice when something has died.

Accordingly, something probably did die last night: Bridgewater Village, a condominium development proposed for a site off Daisy Lane.

Once again, a large contingent of residents turned out to protest the project, and by their doing so, finally we grasp the one issue that unites everyone in the city of New Albany: Daisy Lane, and how it has been ignored, neglected, overused and, quite simply, is so grotesquely wrong in every conceivable way that as community-wide penance, all development in the city must come to a screeching halt, right now, until something is done.

But, something can’t be done because (altogether now) there isn’t any money … although there certainly is money to be derived from development … but shouldn’t those condos be built downtown, where forty years of ineptitude has produced land with no value, even as the earnest homeowners of the Daisy Lane area worked hard to increase the property values in their neighborhood … which makes it the natural location of the proposed condos … except the road is inadequate … and we have no money to fix it … and on, and on, and on it goes, and when the near universal abdication of responsibility on the part of virtually every person in town stops, no one knows.

Now, if you’ve been reading NA Confidential for any length of time, you know how the founder of this blog feels about the populist, ward-heeling and anti-intellectual tendencies regularly emanating from the proudly underachieving right side of the council table, but I’ll tell you this: Last night’s Bridgewater Village proposal was a damned hard call for all nine of the council members to make, including the ones who regularly grandstand and assume poses when such matters arise.

And, collectively, in response to the challenge, what happened?

The council bailed.

Punted.

Turned tail and ran.

Sorry, but it's true. It's also sad. Faced with a tough decision of the sort that demands wisdom, leadership and a touch of guts – faced with something that they were effusive in praising to the developers in attendance – New Albany’s elected city council abjectly surrendered, effectively serving notice that for the year and a half left in their terms of office, absolutely nothing of a positive nature is going to be allowed to happen in this city – especially if the gleefully obstructionist Gang of Four (councilmen Coffey, Price, Bill Schmidt and Larry Kochert) has any say in the matter.

Call it pure, incendiary, spiteful, solution-free political caterwauling if you will -- or as I prefer, just call it by its proper name: Capitulation.

The stress always has been visible on all fronts, but now it's going bonkers.

We’ve come to a point where CM Price, lacking even the most rudimentary revitalization program of his own, expresses open contempt for neighborhood associations that are the sole entities seeking to add some semblance of value to his own council district, and CM Coffey dismisses with a sneer the testimony of anyone who comes before the council to speak, if that unlucky person does not reside alongside CM Coffey himself or better yet, in the approximate vicinity of whatever plan is being discussed at the time.

The curious thing about this unrelenting madness is that the Siamese Councilman and their generally anonymous sycophants are waging their vindictive vendettas against the modern world in such a way as to defecate in their own nests.

You say Scribner Place is certain to draw investment into the 1st District?

CM Coffey’s against it.

Neighborhood associations working against rampant inertia to revamp streets, homes and opportunities?

CM Price is against that, too.

It has ceased to be about politics. It’s now about pathology. Their way, or the highway ... but when it comes to their way, there's no there, there -- just ever escalating venom.

Just when so many people busting their buns on the ground and at the grassroots are joining to offer hope that New Albany can emerge from the corrosive miasmas of neglect and ignorance – efforts that are beginning at long last to bear fruit – the Gang of Four wants to put a stop to it, to strangle regeneration before it flies out of their control, or at the very least to apply the same leaden fist of uncreative, chortling neglect that’s brought us to the juncture they so often decry and use as an excuse for accomplishing nothing.

What explains this self-destructive oddity? What kind of person acts in opposition to forces that increase value for all?

Last night, CM Mark Seabrook summarized the immediate future thusly:


The heavy lifting just got harder for all* of us.

----

*Apologies to the official voice of righteous doom.

13 comments:

G Coyle said...

Wait, so what happened with the Bridge-whatever development? I sort of choked when I saw the publisher of the Tribune come out in support of it Wednesday.

The New Albanian said...

It was defeated in the first reading by a vote of 7-2 by a council that told the developer: "We love your ideas, now go and do them somewhere else where you'll lose money, because we can't be bothered to take charge and fix infrastructure."

Or something to that effect. Note again that the neighborhood opponents had next to nothing bad to say about the design itself other than pointing to the condition of neglected and overcorwded roads.

The development plan itself was a very classy one, designed for empty nesters, and the sort of thing that is needed in New Albany in general.

Rick Carmickle said...

are you sure CM Price is not trying to prove alien life forms do exist in his district?

The New Albanian said...

CMs Crump and Gahan for, the remainder against.

KT, you just had to be there to appreciate it. I have considerable empathy for the residents who've organized to oppose the village; it's just that (a) few of them are able to grasp the larger picture, and (b) none of the politicians in attendance seem willing to help them learn.

One by one, they point to downtown and say, "put it there." I'd love to see it, but there's no incentive for a developer to do so for so long as public officials pursue de facto policies that degrade the value of downtown.

You're absolutely right about what happens next. Next up for that land will be a garish subdivision that no one really needs. It's simply too bad that vision seems to have been bred completely out of the local gene pool.

G Coyle said...

OK, so we can't have development downtown 'cause there's no infrastructure, or Daisy Lane, 'cause there's no infrastructure...that's the same augument all local govt bodies use on Cape Cod to prevent development (in that case, it's water - no water) whenever the zoning hasn't defeated some development plan. Towns all over this country feel run over by developers - wonder why that is?

The New Albanian said...

I'm no slavish devotee of developers, but the argument that goes, "I'm 76 and have lived here for forty years, therefore nothing should happen in my backyard" isn't a very logical one, either.

That's why there are planning and zoning mechanisms, right? But when a developer corresponds exactly to these mechanisms and still gets dismissed because the council's running either scared or dumb, then what sort of message does it send?

I personally want them to redevelop the daylights out of downtown, but the process of matching depressed value with investment potential is extremely complicated, thanks to decades of vacuous stupidity on the part of our leadership cadres.

We can't make the world stop turning. It will continue to turn even if we announce our intention to make it stop. Last night, the developer said that it's a matter of compromise, and that's true, but when it comes to willful malevolence of the likes of the Dan Coffeys and Steve Prices of the world, there can't be a compormise because they refuse to acknowledge the principles and language required to engage in negotiation.

So, Gina, where does that leave us?

TedF said...

The Neighborworks thing is a true puzzler.

Redevelopment had voted unanimously to approve.

Five residents of New Albany will have an opportunity to be part of a pilot on-site training program that NW wants to begin here (and Louisville). Courses include Neighborhood Analysis, Visioning, and Planning; Getting things done through strategic collaboration; Marketing your Neighborhood, etc… Essentially residents get a skill set needed to begin the revitalization of there own neighborhoods.

These five residents then are tasked with transfering that knowledge with others in their organizations as well as others in the city. It’s a proven and nationally recognized program.

Surely there must have been a terrible misunderstanding or gap in communication. I beg anyone that has any questions about this program to please contact me or Lisa Thompson at New Directions Housing Corporation.

G Coyle said...

"...but the process of matching depressed value with investment potential is extremely complicated,"

It's not and you make the same argument all the time. It's simple. Stop throwing away everything, like a perfectly designed and built 19th century town, and start leveraging the investments that have already been made. It's a fact that old people love density and the security of people and services nearby, and at least in the northeast, that means they are the primary market in some places for in-town condo development. The town I've lived in for the past few years - Wellfleet, is extremely popular with seniors because they can walk to the library for their book clubs and the grocery store and a couple restaurants and it allows them to not feel isolated and to be a part of life. From my experience, The best place for seniors is downtown, not some dead suburban car-zombie zone like Daisy Lane. Yeah, the hospital and doctors are there, but that's just depressing to make a decision to live someplace because it's a short trip in an ambulance to die.

East Ender said...

The Neighborworks "thing" would have been a hard one to explain since John Rosenbarger has been saying for years that the City, nor Redevelopment, is allowed to give money to Neighborhood Associations.
The CHDO tried this same thing, to train someone to be an advisor to all Neighborhood Associations, and it was rejected.
I have copies of everything, including a letter signed by Mr. Rosenbarger himself.
Strange, because Siler Grove neighborhood Assoc., who has members including a Board officer included in the lawsuit, have a copy of that same letter.
They should have already known. Unless they planned to just skirt the rules, as is becomming apparent with the Great Leader Garner more and more often lately.
The Dilapidated Housing Fund needs to be replaced, and this offers an opportunity to assist the entire City, not just fortunate portions therein.

The New Albanian said...

EE, how about an update on the status of the East End NA?

The New Albanian said...

While we wait in vain for EE to answer a simple question, let's turn to Ted's earnest response:

"Essentially residents get a skill set needed to begin the revitalization of there own neighborhoods."

Ted, obviously there are some on the council who don't wish to see this happen. That'd be learning how to fish -- and how might self-reliance help them come election time?

The New Albanian said...

Steve wrote: "It is my opinion, politics plays WAY too big a role in this picture anyway."

As we've learned, self-proclaimed autodidacts like CM Coffey are not prepared to acknowledge expertise in any other areas beyond those that they believe themselves to have mastered.

It would be a pleasant change to pare some of the politics away from the process, but as currently constructed, politics is the last refuge of the know-nothing -- and the know-nothing isn't about to hand it over without a fight.

na girl said...

The Neighborworks program is a New Directions Housing Corp (local nonprofit which is responsible for the St Edward Court development as well as many successful housing programs in Louisville)initiative.

The role of the neighborhood associations was to find residents who are interested in participating in this program.