The Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA) Board of Directors met on May 28, 2009 to vote on funding recommendations for the NSP Community Neighborhood Revitalization Fund.$66 million was requested by cities and entities in Indiana, $50 million was awarded by the IHCDA, and apparently none of it goes to New Albany.
It's a win for the Coffey/Price impedimista faction ... and a loss for the city of New Albany.
Remember it in 2011.
I'm confused. Coffey and Price had nothing to do with writing the application for this. I know you recall the debate, it happened at a RD commish meeting. Several on the board, including Coffey, wanted Crystal Court chosen instead of S. Ellen, but they were convinced by the administration that S. Ellen stood the best chance of getting some money.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not they negatively impacted this particular application (and Coffey certainly tried), Coffey and Price have consistently maintained that public investment in New Albany is worthless.
ReplyDeleteCoffey typically only strays from that mantra long enough to point out that "the West End never gets anything" which is, of course, not true. When the potential investment is in his district, Price inexplicably tends to condemn it even more vociferously.
In this case, the city got what they've regularly asked for and is, as usual, no better off as a result.
Their preferred decay management, rather than sustainable improvement to both living conditions and the tax base, lives to fight another day.
Food for thought: It's entirely possible to replicate a program similar to that proposed for NSP with local funds. In fact, doing so would be better than NSP in some ways since we'd not have to abide by often draconian federal regulations and could therefore be more flexible with regard to whom the houses were marketed and sold.
If we had a council that was actively engaged in revitalization efforts, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to create what could likely become a self-sustaining community development effort focused on housing rehab, an obvious need that's gone largely unaddressed by those in charge of the City's Economic Development purse strings.
Oh I agree, the SEJ plan was definitely a worthy cause and hopefully it will get some support from another source. I just think you have to be careful of saying everything that goes wrong is so and so's fault.
ReplyDeleteIf Roger had said it was Coffey and Price's fault, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But he didn't.
ReplyDeleteSo what exactly does remember 2011 mean? IU's next chance of getting in the tourney?...hehe
ReplyDelete@Daniel S, election time...
ReplyDeleteOh I know what it means, but who are we trying to remember in 2011? I think it's pretty obvious what's being suggested, I just don't see how this particular incident has really anything to do with those in question.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Bluegill for getting the gist of it, and also for clearly explaining what all such incidents have to do with those in question.
ReplyDeleteWhy would any state agency award money to a community in which the "leaders" eschew the very type of public investment it would fund?
ReplyDeleteWhy do Coffey and Price spend so much time trying to defeat the very idea of public investment rather than doing ANY WORK AT ALL to seek additional funding streams?
Let's compare NSP notes:
I found out about the NSP program from my own research and approached the City about applying. Staff was already aware and working on it so I and others helped out as needed.
Because they're too lazy and disinterested to do any substantive research on the issues that affect their districts the most, Coffey and Price had no idea about the NSP program until it was presented to them.
Coffey found out about it via his redevelopment position and created problems for city staff working on it every step of the way, making completely unsubstantiated (and unchecked) claims while doing it.
Neither he nor Diane Benedetti, the other council member on the Redevelopment Commission, even bothered to inform other Council Members about the application.
When it came before the Council for final approval, Benedetti tried to table it which would have made us miss our deadline. She claimed ignorance of the deadline, even though it was clearly demarcated in ICHDA materials, had she chosen to take an active interest and actually read them.
Rather than jump in to correct the situation that evening, Coffey claimed it was another issue the administration was trying to jam down the Council's throat at the last minute, even though it's his and Benedetti's responsibility to keep the Council informed about what's happening in redevelopment.
Luckily, city staff was able to convince the council not to table it and got it approved. Had they followed Coffey's lead, New Albany wouldn't have even been able to apply.
So, yeah, when a Council Member does nothing to pursue revitalization on their own, unnecessarily complicates and advocates against the efforts of others, and then lies about the whole thing to his fellow Council Members at the risk of losing a potential $6 million to cover his own ineptitude, I think it's fair to label them as an impediment and associate them with our failure to acquire additional funding.
Repeat that pattern numerous times over a few years and it becomes relatively easy to see what "those in question" have to do with it.
It seems fairly obvious that he's pointing out that voters should consider the whole body of work (such as it is) that those two have put together in 2011. They aren't directly responsible for the NSP grant denial, but I doubt they were too upset about it either. They definitely didn't volunteer to help, as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteI guess. Just seems like if it's raining outside there's only one cloud that could be to blame, and that doesn't really add up to me.
ReplyDeleteI guess your reasoning would be an indictment of every community in Southern Indiana, as none of the metro counties got a dime.
According to the site, nobody in this area got anything. That's pretty much been the story of most of the stimulus money.
ReplyDeleteBut that doesn't explain how talking about Price and Coffey's anti-investment attitude leads to an indictment of the entire region.
ReplyDeleteIf you're serious about pursuing the "why doesn't Southern Indiana get much" story, though, it could be interesting.
I'd start by looking at whether the cities that did get something had state representatives actively participating in the pursuit of available funds.
The Tribune gives our state rep a weekly column to promote his partisan stances. It would at least be nice to see how his approach compares to other representatives who seek to help their local governments rather than strangle them.
Yeah it's definitely a story. I've talked about it with a few people today.
ReplyDeleteAs a current state employee, I can promise you that southern Indiana is often overlooked. It seems that south of Columbus is basically seen as "Northern Kentucky". I noticed on the list of recipients that New Castle is listed as being in the SE region.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting note is that Tell City is represented by the Democratic Floor Leader, Russ Stillwell. Bluegill may know this...will those applications ever become public domain? So we can see how Tell City or the Dubois conglomerate (also partially represented by Stillwell and also Dennie Oxley, Sr. along with anothe Democrat and 1 Republican) shaped their request?
ReplyDeleteBayer,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, but to me it's funny. Living in Kentucky my whole life, most natives consider Louisville to be Southern Indiana.
By the way, did you catch the final last week? I still think Man U is waiting on the bus or something.
...will those applications ever become public domain?I don't know but I certainly wouldn't count on it. It may have changed by now but, late last week, ICHDA wasn't in a rush to answer questions about their decisions.
ReplyDeleteI think this episode, though, provides impetus to review our approach to revitalization funding - including city government, local agencies, state government, federal representation, etc.
What we need is an astute, revitalization minded person to develop and maintain close relationships with the relevant state and federal agencies and officials.
One can argue about lobbying and earmarks from an ideological viewpoint ad infinitum but it remains that other municipalities are securing more funds than us from systems that we all pay into.