Part 1: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.

The primary election is two months away, but already the yard signs are in evidence. Yesterday while driving along Spring Street east of Vincennes, I noticed three “Re-Elect Steve Price” signs, two of which appeared to be adorning the front yards of duplexes. There is another located in front of the councilman’s rental properties across from the S. Ellen Jones Elementary School.

Somewhere in the placement, there lies a message.

Ironically, the topic of rental property inspections re-entered the blogosphere over the weekend. One of CM Price’s 3rd district challengers, Charlie Harshfield, has yet to enunciate a public position on this topic, while the other, former councilman Maury Goldberg, does not include it among the planks of his February 17 platform statement. Public statements, anyone?

Not so long ago, as part of a three-part interview published at NA Confidential, CM Price himself was asked, “Do you agree that New Albany should institute rental property inspections with real teeth? Why or why not?” His answer:

As a reminder, I spearheaded the cleanliness ordinance. I think homeowners’ period should take responsibility for their property. At the present time, I feel we need to focus on enforcing the established ordinances before entertaining new ones.

As a public service, NAC is reposting the Steve Price interview series in its entirety. Perhaps one or the other of his challengers – and perhaps a 3rd district voter or three – will find his non-answers illuminating.

(Originally posted in January, 2006)

Part 1: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price's interview responses.
Part 2: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price's interview responses.
Part 3: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price's interview responses.

Our original questions are numbered, and CM Price's original responses italicized. Commentary follows. Note that while two-thirds of the questions asked of CM Price were formulated by Jeff "Bluegill" Gillenwater, the commentary is entirely that of the blog owner. Jeff is invited to join the discussion, either as a team member or in comments, and of course, all readers are likewise encouraged to provide their thoughts subject to our identity policy.
----

1. Mr. Price, you ran for council as a Democrat. How does your performance in council reflect your role as a Democratic Party officeholder? How can we separate your public statements from those of myriad Republicans over the past 40 years? Why are your stated preferences so different from the historic and progressive ideals of the Democratic Party? Does being a Democrat mean anything to you? What would that be, and how do you differentiate yourself from a Republican?

I am a 21st century Democrat who represents all the people. I believe in standing up for what is right and speaking out against injustice. New Albany is seeing first hand the repercussions of frivolous spending. History has been my teacher. I am not against “community-based” progress just force fed growth. It is not about trying to differentiate myself from anybody; it is about fulfilling the needs of the citizens of New Albany, and doing what will ensure a positive future for this city.

CM Price’s answer to the opening question sets the tone for the remainder of the interview by indicating clearly that either the specifics of the question elude him, or just as likely, he had no intention of risking an explication of them in the first place.

Along with 260 million fellow Americans embracing a myriad of political persuasions, CM Price claims to stand up for what “is right” and to “speak out against injustice.”

He provides no concrete examples of what these might be, or how his definition of “right” and “injustice” as a member of the Democratic Party differs from the perspective of the card-carrying Republican on the other side of the aisle.

Exactly when has CM Price taken the lead in “speaking out against injustice? Exactly what was the injustice?

In the overall context of political self-identification, CM Price’s choice of words seems quite odd, for in fact there is an organization called 21st Century Democrats, which has antecedents in the political campaigns of the late Paul Wellstone and former presidential candidate Howard Dean, and connections to another contemporary “blue” Democratic lobby group called Think Blue.

It should suffice to say that neither of these philosophies seem to be in harmony with what little of his personal political beliefs that CM Price is willing to let us glimpse in his answer to our first question.

Moreover, he moves with unseemly quickness to distance himself from the obvious burden of political self-examination by establishing the existence of his own personal bogeymen, “frivolous spending” and “force fed growth.” As you will see, these concepts are vital to CM Price’s narrow worldview, but they are not defined.

What is Steve Price in the political sense? He doesn’t tell us, but he strongly suggests that it is cautious, provincial and populist.

----

2. Will you pledge to never abstain from a vote unless you can provide details, on record, of the conflict of interest that keeps you from voting?

Each vote is a separate matter to be evaluated through education and consideration before the vote is made. I will continue to vote, either by aye, nay or an abstention as it is best for my constituents. It is better to pause until further information is available than merely blindly rubber stamping.

For the record, here’s how Wikipedia defines abstention:

Abstention is a term in parliamentary procedure for when a participant in a vote is not absent, but does not cast a ballot. An abstention may be used to indicate the voting individual's ambivalence about the measure, or mild disapproval that does not rise to the level of active opposition

In the United States Congress and many other legislatures, members may vote "present" rather than for or against a bill or resolution, which has the effect of an abstention. In the United Nations Security Council, representatives of the five countries holding a veto power (including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and the People's Republic of China) sometimes abstain rather than vetoing a measure about which they are less than enthusiastic, particularly if the measure otherwise has broad support.

It’s worth noting that while an abstention on the first reading of an ordinance might correspond with CM Price’s example of a “pause until further information is available,” that same could not be said when the vote has reached its final tally.

NAC trusts that in the future, CM Price will be willing and able to explain why a specific abstention is “best” for the 3rd District’s constituents.

----

3. Can you please explain the concept of new urbanism and how its guiding principles may help New Albany?

The basic principle of new urbanism is a focus on neighborhood development, with the end resulting in obtaining a balance of living, working and playing spaces in a given area. It is a continuously growing city wide plan, where public input plays a vital role in its success. Creating places for children to play where parents can gather, designing pedestrian friendly shopping districts and affordable safe housing is not as simple as merely drawing a map and placing an “X” where there should be a park.

Anytime a city focuses on positive growth for its economy and residents a city will benefit from careful planning in those areas.

I feel New Albany is currently working on the ground floor of putting into action these principles by enforcing cleanliness ordinances already established, while making “smart” renovations to existing parks and unimproved land areas.

The concepts that have coalesced under the banner of New Urbanism are anything but staid, conservative and dull. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them, they are dynamic, active and transformational in nature. Here are three short descriptions gleaned from the Internet:

NEW URBANISM promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities.

The New Urbanism is a reaction to sprawl. A growing movement of architects, planners, and developers, the New Urbanism is based on principles of planning and architecture that work together to create human-scale, walkable communities.

“Part of that revisionism is New Urbanism, which also has a strong social agenda. Those who think the point of New Urbanism is to make pretty middle-class suburbs don't know New Urbanism. The point is to reform the way we build and to make good, beautiful, walkable, diverse, sustainable places with a public realm worthy of ourselves.”

CM Price addresses these dynamic concepts of New Urbanism with characteristic tones of caution and reserve.

New Urbanism is about “planning,” he says, and requires “balance”; we must be “careful” in considering it, because it may not be “as simple” as it seems, and “smart” tweaking at the existing “ground floor” level must be undertaken before anything else.

Taken at face value, CM Price provides a workmanlike description of New Urbanism, albeit one with an underlying tone of suspicion. One might follow suit by describing the Mona Lisa as a famous painting in a museum somewhere.

We learn here that while the councilman (or someone close to him) possesses a rudimentary understanding of the genre, it comes with the congenital minimalist’s lack of enthusiasm and is absent any core commitment to its comprehension or perpetuation.

----

4. Can you please explain how you intend to use your council position to advocate for those principles via legislative action? If you could give examples of successful legislation from other cities that have done a good job of improving housing and living conditions, it would be helpful.

The point of new urbanism is to serve the needs of the residents in the city. What is crucial to remember is the trends are only as useful as how they serve a particular community at a particular time.

It would be more useful to focus on serving the people who currently live in New Albany by revamping existing structures. I would use my legislative position to advocate for public dialogue of revitalization of existing city parks, how to improve the current parking situation in the downtown area and economic incentives for new downtown locally owned businesses.

I am a proponent of live entertainment, utilizing our riverfront in conjunction with the Greenaway. Live entertainment never goes out of style.

For a councilperson to “serve the needs of the residents on the city” surely is to fulfill only the most basic requirement of his or her job description, and can be accepted as a given in most cases. No one doubts the councilman’s sincerity on this fundamental point.

Consequently, the purpose of asking questions like ours is to determine how an elected official like Steve Price intends to set about identifying and “serving” these needs.

Thus, having been asked previously to define New Urbanism, and being able to provide no more than an unenthusiastic, “partial credit” response, CM Price now rushes to disavow any element of this unified and cogent theory of planning and development, perhaps fearing that such an acknowledgement implies a responsibility to inititate rather than to react, and to propose rather than oppose – to “restructure” rather than to “revamp.”

To lead, rather than to follow.

More clearly than ever, CM Price serves notice that he is wary of “trends,” and intends to remain firmly rooted in the realm of community band-aids for “existing structures” that serve the “particular community,” i.e., his own milieu, his own people, his own upbringing, and a deeply conservative point of view reflected by a recent public comment to the effect that one example of “live entertainment (that) never goes out of style” is Chubby Checker.

----

5. How do you think the city could improve its reputation and attractiveness within the circles of educated, creative, entrepreneurial people whose presence continues to be proven necessary for success in the 21st century economy?

21st century economy is moving towards being debt free; both on a household level as well as a governmental level. Until New Albany’s resolves our current fiscal situation how can we offer an incentive package to those individuals? Statistics tell us that people want to be part of a movement toward growth. Getting in on the ground floor so to speak. When dark clouds of fiscal burdens surround the boundaries of our city – what does that say to our perspective entrepreneurial people? We are a city who is incapable of living within a budget, who is wasteful with monies. The list could go on. How can we ask for monetary investments when we have given the perception of being incapable of handling our own finances?

Intentionally or otherwise, CM Price chooses not to dispute the fundamental gist of the question, which is to establish that the presence of “educated, creative, (and) entrepreneurial people” has been “proven necessary for success in the 21st century economy.”

Instead, he sneaks through the back door, offering this assessment of prevailing economic theory:

“21st century economy is moving towards being debt free; both on a household level as well as a governmental level.”

According to CM Price, New Albany is “wasteful,” “incapable of living within a budget, and unable to handle its “own finances,” and because of this, we must conclude that the city has nothing to attract investors.

What, then, has attracted the entrepreneurial cadres already at work downtown? Why haven’t they been frightened away?

For two years, we have listened to CM Price’s twangy homespun homiles about nickels, dimes and grandma’s cigar box, but in this instance, he’s the one mistakenly putting the cart before the horse.

Just perhaps the “educated, creative” and “entrepreneurial people” and their focused investments are what helps to bring financial stability and economic growth, and that their presence in a particular place has as much to do with factors such as real estate prices, proximity to recreational opportunities and lifestyle choices as anything else.

Perhaps the “incentive package” that’s best to offer such people isn’t cash, either directly or indirectly, but a receptive and hopeful attitude on the part of the existing community.

After all, these aren’t all outsiders, although some come from elsewhere; many were born and raised here, and left to seek greener pastures precisely because there was no encouragement for their skills and aspirations here in New Albany.

Perhaps the ones who have come here from other parts of the country aren’t interested in hearing the excuses for failure, but bring with them a can-do spirit that used to be part of New Albany’s fabric when it was young and growing.

To be sure, cities far more degraded than ours have managed to revitalize themselves in spite of less to work with than New Albany possesses. How have they done it?

It might be as simple as the will to succeed.

As a side note, and in closing today’s considerations, it’s worth pointing out that by his own admission, the works of the right-wing, debt-free financial guru Dave Ramsey have a heavy personal influence on Councilman Price.

The question, as yet unanswered, is whether Ramsey’s household realm of advice and theory is applicable to the “21st century economy” in the wider sense. CM Price implies that it is.

Is it?