Whomever eventually gets the garbage gig in this town ought to take CMs Coffey, Schmidt, Kochert and Price to dinner, if they haven't already. Their proposed $520,000 temporary non-solution to the city's sanitation problem will guarantee an abundance of garbage and trash for the foreseeable future (or at least until a post election 2008). Dinner alone may not be enough to warrant the lovemaking the CMs seemingly reserve for those special slumlords, but a suitor has to start somewhere.
With no funding for a code enforcement officer, no paralegal to help the already part-time city attorney prosecute ordinance violations, no building inspection and no economic development, the cycle of financial and cultural poverty will continue indefinitely. What Coffey, Schmidt, Kochert and Price have offered up is a nearly perfect plan to exacerbate the problem, making progress towards a long-term solution impossible-- kill the prevention program while simultaneously making sure we have no hope of generating any additional revenue to help pay for the resulting increased need for services.
What's the pay off for this proposed investment? The city will delay a sanitation decision for three months until the end of the year. CM Schmidt says, "This would give us time to work on it". That time will cost taxpayers $173,333 a month—a lot of nickels and dimes for part-time work from a crew with no history of success.
Schmidt, Coffey and Kochert have had twenty years (with sanitation in dire straits for the past few) to solve this problem and, for another half-million in tax dollars, they've agreed to think about it some more. If this proposal, which does absolutely nothing to actually solve the sanitation problem for the city or its workers, is passed, their continued regimen of delay and obfuscation will cost the city more than three percent of its annual budget this quarter alone.
The human cost may be best measured by walking the streets of downtown neighborhoods. Last weekend, I had to move garbage off the sidewalk to clear the way for a teenaged mother who'd chosen to alter her route down a cross street in a hurried attempt to avoid a young ruffian returning home via Market, presumably after a visit to his dealer's rental, proudly bragging to anyone within earshot that he had been drinking and smoking all day. She could've made the turn sooner but the sidewalk on the other side is impassible for strollers due to the grass and weeds growing up through it. Avoiding the abandoned car behind the house on that side was probably a good idea, too.
Luckily, they passed without incident. But not before my tightened grip on the rake reminded me of my own fears of rearing a child in this place.
It's too bad Ben Hershberg thinks the mayor's personal business difficulties warrant headlines but the people responsible for the situation above for the last twenty years shouldn't have to answer any real questions. If he intends to ride out his career by making New Albany look bad, he's missing his best opportunity to do so.
City eyes shifting funds to sanitation by Ben Zion Hershberg, The Courier-Journal (short shelf life for C-J links)
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6 comments:
So I take Mr. Roberts that your more in favor of Cleaning Up NA with code enforcement,etc instead of trying to help save some jobs of city workers?
Likewise I am curious about long-term issues. Vocational direction would appear appropriate at this point, but the CC has dropped the ball. Tim's raving about biotechnic solutions appear to have some basis in reality. That said, I cringe everytime I encounter a "horror story" which characterizes our city as a penal colony (a la escape from new york.) I mean REALLY people, do you consider the streets that unsafe? I have lived either downtown or on vincennes street for 12 years now and I don't harbor these fears. Badger's position should accomplish a great deal in terms of upholding code on property, but these phantoms which appear to keep folks awake at night: where do you think they are going? Perhaps with such syndromes of white flight on the horizon, you should emulaate my father and build in Lanesville.
Good point Jon, same thing happened in the west end of L'ville in the late 60's. My wife's family was one of the last white families to leave the neighborhood across from Shawnee Park/Fountain Fairy Park and they hated to leave. Some of the same things are happening here in downtown NA as did there with the flight of people moving to the east end of L'ville. Alot of it was word of mouth, but was also bogous scare tactics that had people leave the 'hoods that folks had been in for generations. Damn shame.
What we need is an overhaul of community leadership and replace them with progressive thinkers. Seems like the same subject on here weekly.
Sorry for the rant, I like living here and wish to see it grow rather be stagnant or in further decline.
Just for clarification, I didn't relate the story above as a scare tactic. Having lived in much worse neighborhoods, I'm relatively happy with the absence of gunfire.
The fact remains, though, that when potential home buyers cruise the neighborhoods downtown, they see all the props and characters involved in my story because they're there in plain sight. As I'm sure Brandon can attest, it makes what should be an easy sell much more challenging.
Some family and friends were helping us move some furniture into our house this weekend and, if the beer cans tossed into our yard weren't enough, we were embarrassed when folks in a rental across the street started arguing and screaming "motherfucker" at the top of their lungs. What would I have done if I were a real estate agent showing the house? It may not be dangerous but it's definitely not a selling point.
The point is that the whole scene is facilitated by an unchecked rental market and a stifling "we can't" culture, both of which have been reinforced by long-standing council members who themselves lack the education necessary to understand potential solutions to the problem or, in some cases, why it's a problem at all.
While I won't disagree that our Council could have introduced an ordinance enforcement position years ago, it also bears mentioning that the Building Commissioner is a major part of the equation also. There has never been active building code enforcement in New Albany, and that pattern continues with the current administration.
It is also worth mentioning that several owners of inner city apartment dwellings appear on Mayor Garner's campaign contribution list. If it seems reasonable to consider that a council member with apartment interests would try to avoid ordinance enforcement, I can also see it being reasonable to consider that a Mayor getting financial backing from a multiple apartment owner(s) might be less than proactive in building code enforcement.
I think that the responsibility for the current condition of New Albany is a shared one, and I would hesitate to place all the blame on one faction.
And who's fought the current mayor every time he's tried to make changes in the Commissioner's office?
Garner isn't perfect but he starts with a four person handicap every time out of the chute.
I suggested to someone the other day that the mayor should just do nothing for six months. Without a mayor to react to, council obstructionists would be lost.
It's always about the mayor, any mayor, being wrong and never about presenting a better idea.
Contrary to what they and their supporters would have you believe, my and many others' opinions about Coffey, Schmidt, Kochert, and Price have nothing to do with who's in the mayor's offfice. It's based solely on their performance as council members, and as hard as they try, they can't blame that on any mayor.
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