Last October, NAC joined the cheering throng, knocked back a few hop-laden growlers, lassoed the oversized statue overlooking that yellow canopied namesake dome, and pulled that mother back down to room temperature.
New hope for the riverfront: Thousands gather downtown to toast Trinkle’s departure.
With his resignation ostensibly on file, and in a spirit of joyous impending Boblessness, I wrote:
Trinkle, who couldn’t find his way out of the conventional thinking box with a Saturn rocket bungeed to his back side, was undoubtedly James Garner’s single worst appointment as mayor.
Throughout his career, Trinkle has gazed in fear upon multi-generational diversity and artistic creativity and always -- always -- he has seen only encroachments and dire threats to the suffocating limitations of his own preferred monocultural milieu. Never has it occurred to him that these offer virtually limitless possibilities for circumventing the “constraints of a city budget with many priorities," which he now predictably cites as an excuse upon exiting the scene.
Trinkle's tenure on the waterfront was a pathetic failure. Perhaps, for once, the city will learn something from the experience. I, for one, am learning not to hold my breath.
And yet, we still live in New Albany. Seven months later, Trinkle’s name still adorns a slot at the city’s web site, and whether or not he’s actually still involved with administering the chronic annual disuse of the city’s waterfront, another summer of virtual nothingness beckons.
Meanwhile, just upriver, something is being done …
Jeffersonville officials hope to bring crowds out with RiverStage season, by the Tribune's David Mann
There’s going to be concerts for the adults, musicals for the kids and Willy Wonka — who has long entertained both. Those are among the events going on at Jeffersonville’s RiverStage this summer.
As New Albanians continue to sift through the underachieving rubble of the Trinkle years, we find our faces inadvertently rubbed in piquant river mud by the words of Keith Fetz, a Jeffersonville city council member who dares (!) use the "P" word without fear of being rhetorically jumped in a dark alley by New Albany’s reactionary spokesman for all things backward, Councilman Cappuccino:
“It’s pretty progressive for a city our size to have something like that,” (Fetz) said. “I just think (the RiverStage) is a huge economic development tool. It’s kind of a magnet to bring people to downtown Jeffersonville.”
At least the annual 4th of July celebration remains on the agenda.
New Albany to celebrate Fourth on the Third, by the C-J's Rick Rojas.
Fireworks over the river. Local bands performing. A summer evening of refreshments and fun. That's the checklist for a Fourth of July celebration in most places.
But not in New Albany. It all happens on July 3.
Not wanting to be overshadowed by other celebrations in the area, New Albany Mayor Doug England has planned for his city's to take place one day early.
Yes, Erika, we offer an alternative to the ongoing amphitheater malaise, and it was described in this space last summer:
Meanwhile, even in New Albany there are entrepreneurs of all generations who are willing and able to transform the amphitheater into a profitable, multi-cultural and diverse undertaking, one certainly capable of shifting income to the city rather than draining from it by being forced to subsist on a barely justifiable salary paid to one person who is completely out of touch with the demographic most sorely needed.
That'd be youth.
A better case for a public-private partnership is difficult to imagine; merely state the criteria, accept bids, award a contract, specify the percentage to be returned to the city, and permit private enterprise and a profit motive to inject life into a moribund and neglected area.
I look forward to the day when this topic is dead, because that means the riverfront is being used. Until then ... Myanmar redux.
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On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.
On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .
Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.
If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?
maybe we can finally get rid of the harvest homecoming approved bands the marlins and monarchs now or is expecting two miracles the end of trinkle and the end of HH dinosaurs too much to ask for?
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