Nice flowers. Did the slumlord pay his share?

Irv Stumler and Jerry Finn explain their clean and green vision to Dale Moss (Courier-Journal): Failed mayoral candidate still pushes New Albany cleanup effort.

The idyllic intent is to plant more flowers and trees, pick up more trash and better maintain both public and private spaces. Neighbors are to inspire neighbors, neighborhoods are to inspire neighborhoods. People would work routinely and proudly. “It takes continuous effort,” Stumler said. “It doesn’t just happen.”

Indeed, it does not.

Consider that in barely two weeks, there have been two significant busts of meth labs near schools. Meanwhile, the old tavern building at the corner of 8th and Culbertson, which has been neglected for decades by infamously parasitical Jeffersonville slumlords, began collapsing a month ago, and what remains might or might not be salvageable.

Yes, we have newly vibrant strategies for demolishing decrepit buildings. We also have no citywide plan to replace them, and instead, we talk about tens of millions to expend on one waterfront property, rather than the hundred of vacant living spaces awaiting revitalization in a manner that would reinforce the notion of a neighborhood, rather than serve as a walled downtown enclave.

You see, it's easy to be cynical about beautification in a lingering context of the city's congenital refusal to enforce its own codes, and amid signs that top-down political pressure rather than grassroots up-push remains the default setting for what approximates "action" hereabouts.

I try hard not to be cynical, but as a former board member of the Urban Enterprise Association, I remember all too well how the current administration used a sizeable chunk of UEA money a few years back to plant annual flowers that later were trampled by Harvest Homecoming before dying. It made no sense at all, it was a waste of money, but it looked good. For a while.

I'm no botanist, but it is my hope that the current Clean and Green effort might at least deal in native plant varieties that will return yearly, not serve merely as one-off political window dressing.

Overall, I wish Irv and Jerry the best of luck as they seek to corral the vandals and keep the extractors in line with little or no assistance from government. Absolutely: We all want this to be a better place, not just a more attractive one. Whether this can be achieved by treating symptoms without addressing root contagions is the real question.