UPDATED: "Cleaning up" New Albany means identifying and attacking congenital dysfunction. Does your councilperson agree?

(See 9:30 a.m. update below)

Last week in New Albany ended with a bang, as Building Commissioner Paul Roberts suddenly resigned on Thursday afternoon, and Mayor James Garner announced at the city council meeting the same evening that a six-member task force would begin this week to examine neglected records on derelict properties.

Ominously, Mayor Garner also noted the absence of money to remove those structures deemed worthy of demolition, and predictably, it was conceded that previous administrations had been nonchalant with respect to pursuing remuneration from property owners who had allowed their buildings to rot to the point of intervention.

Alas, when it comes to the ghosts of past sloth and underachievement, almost nothing is surprising in New Albany (suggested motto: "Where every day is Halloween, and the slumlords all reign supreme").

As we wrote last week:

For reasons that may remain unknown to us – desperation, payola, expedience, lack of imagination or just plain laziness – successive generations of political “leaders” have failed to address New Albany’s culture of unaccountability, failed to articulate a vision of residency that does not rely on the slumlord’s corrosive calculation, and failed what should be a government official’s fundamental measurement of efficiency, namely, fair and equal enforcement of laws that exist to maintain a level playing field for all citizens.

Yes, there is blame to be spewed in all directions, but far more importantly, there is work to be done in the present and future tenses.

Numerous suggestions have been advanced in this space and others as to how the city might begin the task of making up for lost time without incurring unaffordable costs, and here we are not speaking solely of demolition procedures, but of better implementing the ordinances that currently exist toward the aim of improving the housing stock to prevent the last resort of demolition.

As an example, and prior to Roberts’s resignation last week, the building commissioner had received a request from Ronald Niehoff, owner of the dilapidated property at 1018 E. Spring Street, that an extension be given on a deadline handed him a month earlier by the Board of Public Works and Safety.

The Board’s weekly meeting is today, as is the kickoff of the task force described last week by the Mayor … but what of last week’s deadline?

Niehoff’s house had fallen squarely in the spotlight of neighborhood concern over an obviously deteriorating structure and presumably unsafe living conditions within it, and after numerous visits to the Board of Public Works, that body finally took firm and decisive action. Little has been done by the property owner to rectify the situation.

In the wake of the building commissioner’s departure, will this momentum carry through to the next step required to bring a seemingly recalcitrant property owner into line with the community standards observed by law-abiding citizens?

NA Confidential appreciates these recent efforts on the part of the Board of Works and the Mayor, and although we’ve no axe to grind with the now departed building commissioner, it’s obvious that the office requires a higher level of aggressiveness and self-motivation than was displayed by the previous occupant.

However, in fairness to all concerned, sometimes there’s more to taking back a city than hard work, dedication and diligence. It helps to have goals and the sustainable plans for achieving them, as well as ideals and the leadership skills necessary to inspire their acceptance.

It may require (shudder) the expenditure of political capital, and if so, then the burden should be shouldered by all, not some, of our local elected officials.

After all, to our knowledge, none of New Albany’s elected public officials has publicly and explicitly disavowed the precepts of code and ordinance enforcement expressed in today’s posting.

It is true that a select few may have uttered agreement with fingers crossed behind their backs, but it is precisely for this reason that the time has come for all of them to commit publicly and explicitly to a program that seeks not merely to clean up New Albany by collecting trash, demolishing unsafe structures and removing street spam, but to Clean Up New Albany by attacking the sources of indolence, venality and enforcement dysfunction that have been allowed to run rampant for far too long.

We understand that there will be resistance, both from certain elected officials and from those members of the public who benefit the most from the New Albany Syndrome, to grandiose ideas that we’re told are all but impossible to bring to fruition, such is our level of backwardness and resistance to the reality-based world -- ideas like rental inspections, a full time city attorney and a city court.

However, much can be done with the resources at our disposal as we work toward these desired – and necessary – goals.

We’re interested in what you think such a manifesto or resolution should say about statements of purpose, goals and proposals for attainment. Once we have it in hand, we’ll go about the task of seeing which of our leaders are ready to lead – and which need to return to full-time management of their own rental properties.

It should be very, very instructive.

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Tuesday, 9:30 am update: Waking correspondent Courtney spotted the promised task force bright and early this morning examining a building at 1106 Elm Street that was discussed at last week's Board of Public Works meeting as being the source of a rat problem, and for various code violations.













Previously in NA Confidential:

The thread was too good to interrupt ... but where do we go from here?

708 Culbertson Avenue: They're not pretty pictures.

Rental property reform: "We have an obvious problem and no elected officials are offering solutions," so here's one, courtesy of our own Bluegill.

Seeing as rental property reform is a community building proposition, who could possibly be opposed?