No sure bet: With $1.8 million request lingering, New Albany council not happy about public safety spending, by Daniel Suddeath (Tribune).It makes me think: A place like New Albany needs all the help it can get, especially when it comes to persuading people from other locales to come here and contribute their discretionary income to our local economy. In essence, although I generally cite the restaurant and pub business as my occupation, what I've really been doing for 20 years is trying to convince Louisvillians to accept Southern Indiana as part of the metro area.
Then it occurs to me how much this herculean daily effort to attract visitors from Louisville, not to mention other far-flung locales, stands to be irreparably damaged by the twenty years of tolling on existing Ohio River bridges required to justify the boondoggle and build the one bridge downtown that isn't at all needed, and to perpetuate reliance on autos and fossil fuels at a time when much of the world addesses the addiction, I must question how organizations like One Southern Indiana can publicly support such tragic initiatives without the heavy use of frequently administered hallucinogenics.
Perhaps 1SI can slip police and fire funding into the budget for the Bridges Debacle. Mr. Dalby does purport to represent ALL of us, right?
...I must question how organizations like One Southern Indiana can publicly support such tragic initiatives...
ReplyDelete$$$$$$$
1SI's policy wing functions separately from the remainder of the organization. It's a pay to play arrangement with big business players paying quite a bit more than standard dues to get a seat at the advocacy table.
One might think that with staff on the ground dealing with businesses like yours every day, the organization would rely on some combination of those two constituencies for insight into how regional policy affects legitimate, independent, small business entrepreneurs as part of an attempt to build a more sustainable, more equitable regional economy. One might think that case study after case study pointing to the inanity of the current "transportation" plan might somehow find their way into policy stances as well. But if one thought either, one would be wrong.
Like I've said for years, Dalby says what he's paid to say and, like the large majority of small businesses in Southern Indiana (not to mention residents), you're not paying anywhere near enough for him or the pitiful PR hacks at the Bridges Coalition to even flinch when they knowingly obfuscate and misinform.
It'd be nice if we had any public representation to counteract that, but the same money just keeps on talking.
"It'd be nice if we had any public representation to counteract that" but in the meantime, keep on' bloggin!!
ReplyDeleteThe power structure here is disadvantaged by our grasp and employment of new media technology. Just the fact we can publicly discuss these issues of power and money is way different than 20 years ago when literally power and money only had to walk between the Pendennis club, the LCC, a couple of white shoe law firms downtown and Hilliard-Lyons. We had the old Courier for balance then. But this area, probably more than most metro regions in the USA, still concentrates power in a small nexus of people. Hence it's overt "back-wardness" The elite here have had a good run and after 200 years of total control, it's hard to let go. it's just so hard to pry their fingers off things like the East End Bridge.
But they don't get new media. All is not lost...