NAC responds to a Tribune letter to the editor ... in more than two hundred words.

New Albany Tribune reader Joe Tanksley performed a valuable public service yesterday when he demonstrated that far too many New Albany residents – not only those with high school educations, but from all educational backgrounds – remain acutely vulnerable to rumors, innuendo and misinformation.

Mr. Tanksley’s letter to the editor ran atop the redesigned editorial page, and readers were invited to respond in 200 words or less. As that’s a mere two or three painfully abbreviated paragraphs in NA Confidential’s realm, we decided to respond here.

If and when it becomes possible to link to Mr. Tanskley’s letter, it will be done, but in essence, he wrote to express dissatisfaction with the current city administration.

It’s not Joe’s fault that conspiratorial hucksters prey on him … although it is to their shame, and the community’s detriment, that they persist in doing so.
Of course, everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts, and some times it is awfully difficult to tell the difference when some folks are determined to mislead you.

In point of fact, New Albany’s first priority for the future is to become smarter – and not just by support for education. We must keep more of our …

(Note: 200 words would have ended here.)

… best and brightest, and attract a new generation of homeowners and jobholders whose lifestyles and professional skills blend together into a phenomenon now referred to by economic analysts like Richard Florida as the "creative class."

Obviously, some aspects of "business as usual" have to be changed, and far from "not having it," the current administration fully recognizes the need for New Albany to break with the city’s well-documented civic dysfunction. It has coped admirably under stress, faced by a series of crises not of its own making, while at the same time attempting to address the issues of a smarter New Albany, without which revitalization efforts may well come to nothing.

Unfortunately, the Scribner Place project continues to be the whipping boy preferred by those among us, like 1st District Councilman Dan Coffey and his Siamese Councilman, 3rd District CM Steve Price, who are innately suspicious of an evolving world that seems foreign and incomprehensible to them, one populated by odd people with strange preferences like exercise, reading, sushi and espresso, and who, to them, symbolize detached affluence and practiced disdain for the working classes and the underprivileged.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and both Mr. Coffey and Mr. Price probably know it, but grandstanding and ward heeling become second nature when you’ve been at it for so long.

These people represent hope for a new economy, and New Albany desperately needs to get smarter so all of the city’s residents can reap a share of the benefits from such a new economy. The good news is that many, if not all, of the factors necessary to get us headed in the right direction are already here. They just need help.

Scribner Place, while hardly a panacea, is precisely the sort of cost-effective partnership between government and the private sector that stands to bring people – including non-residents -- downtown. In conjunction with the Ohio River Greenway, the Cannon sports park, Main Street and Spring Street area plans, Al Goodman’s plans for the Moser Tannery, existing downtown businesses and new ones that are coming soon (trust me, I know), Scribner Place is a major step in the right direction.

I know it doesn’t seem this way to those for whom envy and spite are the dominant personal and political modes of expression, and it’s a genuine pity that they’ll be missing out on the good times ahead out of sheer stubbornness, but as they say so often, it’s just their opinions – which aren’t necessarily facts, and which definitely aren’t valid reasons to dismiss progress in New Albany.

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Here are random links from May and June, 2005, to NA Confidential pieces on this and similar topics.

Price rocks S. Ellen Jones: The last person to leave New Albany, please douse the candles and drop off your keys at the Brambleberry residence

The Coffey/Price dumbumvirate's rear-guard action against progress

An evening on the brink: Tragicomic opera courtesy of NA's Siamese councilmen

Councilman Cappuccino declares city administration null and void, invites YMCA to form provisional government with himself as regent

Coffey to Redevelopment Commission: I'm clueless, and you should be, too

Price to citizenry: I'm scared, and you should be, too