Part Four: Ordinances, resolutions, and all that Coffeyite grandstanding.

INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS: READING

Price to introduce R-09-24, and actually does it. Seconded. Wow.

R-09-24 Resolution of the Common Council of the City of New Albany Amending the “New Albany-Fringe Area Comprehensive Plan 2020”

Scott Wood and Larry Timperman come forward to explain the plan.

Wood: Some areas deserve greater scrutiny, including downtown. Scott rationally and patiently explains the history of plans and zoning.

Timperman: Overall concept was explained at a public meeting advertised extensively and loudly (JB, Atlanta daydreaming). He explains the focus on the downtown. How use of areas can tie into the river heritage. Example, Greenway. Connecting Main Street back over the levee to the river. Another need is concentrationthat will require parking. Design elements have been coming in during information gathering ("a number of public meetings" giggle). Explains color coding of the chart, emphasizing reinforcing the downtown fabric already there.

Coffey pounces and asks how much money is being asked for. PARKING GARAGE!! PARKING GARAGE!!

Wood: No blank checks, just a blueprint. Cuts off the Wizard.

Benedetti: A vision.

Price: Please address Mr. Bledsoe's concerns.

Wood: The fact of the matter is that several private property owners have asked for assurances so they can develop. The plan helps with this.

Price: What about that historic thing?

Wood: Historic Preservation is not about zoning.

Timperman: The other point is that infill needs to be appropriate, and that cheap knockoffs of history are not desirable. Nowadays, the national standard is not to duplicate old things.

Wood: There is a falseness about that ... we're good builders today, too. We can design and build good buildings and come up with things that work.

Timperman and Wood explain design principles that neither Bledsoe nor Price WANT to understand. Whether they do or not is another matter. This misunderstanding is intentional, and it is political in nature.

Wood: Passionately defends green buildings and explains why it's a good idea, and not necessariyl one that applies only to deep pockets. Louisville kept hammering at their plan until it is now a model that can work here.

Zurschmiede: Just a recommendation, eh? Nothing to hold anyone to it?

Nope.

Timperman: Green could be using basic energy efficient concepts like bulbs and windows.

John Gonder: What about light rail?

Timperman: 10 to 15 years!

A light rail discussion ensues, and then Mose Putney comes forward. I believe it is bad strategy for Mose to speak about specifics, including the dreaded parking garage bogey man, when all we have here is a resolution of unspecific intent. At the same time, the Bobo project makes no sense without it.

Putney: Mentions a two-way Pearl Street

Noooooo ... not that, Mose. The natives will revolt.

Putney: Uses the phrase, "slow travel urban drop-off plaza." He calls it a "conceptual idea."

Eyes mist over. Them's big words, don't ya know. Someone needs a tall boy, and now -- but it isn't me. It is impressive of Mose to speak this language to these people. Some of them understand it. Price visibly yawns.

Coffey: Will this group ask for any money for any of this?

Putney: Meanders into the trap Coffey set, although he tries not to, and mentions public/private partnership to, yes, build a parking garage.

Robert's Rules of Order out the window.

Coffey: "Does any kind of development occur that doesn't ask for handouts?"

Coffey says that Louisville spent a "billion dollars" on 4th Street and it still doesn't pay. Putney counters with the history of urban redevelopment failure, and how no one thought about Europe. The urban movement the last 10-15 years puts us into a place to fix it. This is a new kind of developer. Sustainable, green, renewable.

All of this plays into Coffey's grandstand.

Coffey wants developers to come ask to pay to come into New Albany. Coffey goes ballistic. Putney and Coffey argue.

Price: Is there any other developer, was there other ideas?

Wood: This one came to us?

Price: Anyone else have any ideas?

Wood? Sure. Others took themselves out of it (one of whom Coffey chased out of a meeting three years ago). These guys have the financial wherewithal. The language about the VFW has been removed. There has been a grant applied for, to put toward such projects (water resources).

Jack Messer: $$$?

Putney: $40 million.

Gonder: "New Albany is scaled right for something like this?"

Putney: Umm, yes. In Louisville, something could be built far away from the core. Here, there's a center. There could be some monumental buildings here. These becomes icons, things that enhance what didn;t get trashed during misplaced urban renewal.

Coffey's thinking: One of them people. One of them people.

Benedetti: Call for a vote.

Only one vote. Resolution. Roll call.

Against: Coffey (citing underhandedness)

Abstain: Price ("don't like to tell me kids they're going to Disneyland before I know I can afford it")

7-2, yes.