ON THE AVENUES: How do we pick the winners?

ON THE AVENUES: How do we pick the winners?

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist

Scandalized churchgoer: “Is this a game of chance?”

W.C. Fields, poker hand at the ready: “Not the way I play it.”

On Wednesday evening, I took the missus to a revue at the library’s Strassweg Rialto.

It was called “Puttin’ on the TIF,” and starred Mainland Properties. Co-starring was Carl Malysz, evidently the lame duck mayor’s semi-permanent stand-in for such productions, and both Mike Kopp and Mose Putney had prominent cameos.

At this, the second of the city council’s public shindigs on the proposed River View development, much well-choreographed information was dispensed. There also were variable dollops of misinformation (soft shoe), and certain bits of non-information (shuck and jive), and as I listened, it occurred to me how rapidly the parameters of this discussion are expanding.

Seemingly by the minute, project proponents are upping the ante. By the time the council meets next week, River View will have cured the common cold. Give it another couple weeks, and it will be among the favorites to win the Tour de France.

With the list of River View’s future benefits to the community having long since surpassed the attributes of any product ever pitched by the late Billy Mays on basic cable, all that’s left is for Pinocchio to file a lawsuit alleging infringement of copyright.

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Obviously, the question of whether to deploy TIF’s property tax diversion toolbox as a means of local government deigning to pick a for-profit winner, in the sense of providing the collateral necessary for the investment group to obtain project capital it clearly does not possess without the city as co-signer, has significantly transcended local government’s stated mandate to pursue “economic development.”

Yet again, we have entered the realm of economic development as church service, with believers battling non-believers. There is much being accepted on the basis of faith, and little being empirically proven. As in all religious wars, exaggerations and contradictions offered by the pious are supposed to stand, unquestioned, while aspersions are cast on the integrity of those who dare offer contrarian viewpoints.

Consequently, with each additional claim as to River View’s socio-economic curatives, a contrarian like me feels challenged to demand that previously unquestioned assertions be proven.

As a case in point, after reading coverage of the first public hearing, where it was mentioned that Heine Brothers Coffee and Bristol Bar & Grill are among those expressing interest in occupying River View’s commercial space, I thought it useful to ask my contacts at these two companies whether it was true.

The response from one was that while it had been discussed, it was a very long time ago and had almost been forgotten in the interim. From the other, it was simpler: “No.” And yet River View backers regularly use items like this as a means of persuasion. If the diminished local newspaper can’t or won’t follow up, someone must.

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I didn’t fall off the hay wagon yesterday afternoon, and the fact remains that government regularly seeks to pick winners. A citizenry inured to apathy tends to accept such games of economic development chance, providing that certain fundamental ground rules are obeyed.

The playing field needs to be somewhat level, and transparency should be exercised to preclude the historical excesses of the smoke-filled back room.

These days, it is fitting and proper to ask in addition that some thought be given to future exigencies. As a counter example, the major deficiency of the Ohio River Bridges Project from inception to the present day is its breathtaking assumption that whatever worked as a “mobility solution” for automobiles during the Eisenhower administration will still be true in the year 2060.

Picking a winner? I believe that in the case of Mainland’s proposals for River View, the city of New Albany’s due diligence needs to be notched considerably higher.

Picking a winner? While River View conceptually fills a slot implied by the second phase of the Scribner Place (whatever happened to that planned name, anyway?) master plan, it emphatically is not to be confused with the YMCA, even if proponents insist on perpetuating this fallacy.

River View is for-profit, and the YMCA non-profit. Furthermore, the Horseshoe Foundation is not poised to lavish $20 million on a condo development, and there is no comparable provision to reduce the price of condos for those members of the community who cannot afford them.

Picking a winner? To assist River View in the cause of economic development is to subsidize a luxurious, private, for-profit project profoundly out of whack with local realities. What’s more, 700 sq. ft. “efficiency” condos at 180K are not the key to increasing the number of 22-45 year olds in New Albany, as an audience member asserted on Wednesday.

Rather, our neglected neighborhoods are where this demographic wants to locate. Our neighborhoods are where there are $75,000 houses in need of refurbishment, where young people wouldn’t need a $75,000 salary to be able to buy and devote elbow grease to rehabilitation. If – heaven forbid – civic muscle were to be devoted to curbing slumlord empowerment enforcing the stray ordinance, these young people might choose to raise a family here.

Picking a winner? New Albany may be a toad, but this riverfront spot is a plum. We’re being asked to subordinate potential use as a public-owned commons to a private high-income profit motive, with the hope that public access to a plaza can be balanced with private interests.

Consequently, while any real estate development of this magnitude is risky, the risk in this instance is even greater owing to the irreplaceable nature of what could be lost for the sake of four $1.2 million penthouses in the sky.

Picking a winner? Okay, but is this the “winner” we need to be picking? I say this because on Wednesday, Mainland’s spokesperson actually used the word “trickle” to describe the way that River View would impact the local economy.

Penthouses trickling down to us ... ye Gods, how’s that for imagery?