Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Drinking Progressively: Tonight at BSB, 6:00 p.m., but no tacos until Friday.


In November, I first mentioned the idea of brief weekly meetings to discuss local issues in an informal atmosphere -- with beer. In short: How do we make New Albany a place where we want to stay, not leave?

Is it possible?

The gist of this notion is not unlike the Drinking Liberally groups, although we'd be drinking progressively according to definition:

Happening or developing gradually or in stages; proceeding step by step.

Drinking Progressively will be an informal open discussion about what is to be done locally, in any and every sense, in preparation for city elections next year. It's the development of the ideal civic platform for progress, as opposed to regress. Anyone is welcome to attend, and the intent is ecumenical, so party affiliations (or none at all) are irrelevant. Come and go as you please; no mandatory anything.

Last week, we kicked off this series with a far-ranging chat about platform planks. We'll return to them tonight, because the idea is to integrate ideas, not merely spew them.

Consider the negative example of the Main Street Improvement Project, funded (and as reported last evening, with the pavement already decaying) prior to the completion and presumed application of a street and traffic study that likely will illustrate how bad an idea the Main Street project really was when politically conceived in such a way, in the complete absence of connectivity.

What we're looking for is a shovel-ready platform. In the process of writing, quite a few seemingly mundane considerations will be examined, and this is the point.

Time: Tuesday evenings, each week, roughly 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the WCTU Reading Room at Bank Street Brewhouse. I'll pledge to be there as often as possible, but these gatherings needn't depend on the presence of any one person.

As an added bonus, on Tuesdays we offer inexpensive pint specials from our session series.

In addition, there's this:

ON THE AVENUES: Why not a progressive movement in New Albany? It sure beats a two-party debacle.

And check here, too: Greater New Albany blog.

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