New Albany mayor, Little League at odds over location of new ballpark complex
New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan and the leaders of the New Albany Little League are locked in a battle over competing plans to build a new youth baseball and softball complex.
Both the city and New Albany Little League officials have released statements saying they intend to build ballfield complexes — and each is criticizing the other’s plans.
NAC co-editor Jeff Gillenwater's thoughts at Facebook mirror my own.
All the backdoor scheming to move New Albany Little League out of New Albany reflects very poorly on county government, the Little League, the new Floyd County Parks Board, and the Horseshoe Foundation. It represents some of the ugliest politics I've seen in Floyd County, every Little League parent stereotype proven true ... people who use the terms "Little League" and "economic driver" interchangeably should be banned from activities involving children.
But the issues go deeper. In a city noted for its chaotic, poorly plotted and frankly archaic street grid, one that reduces humans choosing not to travel by automobile to a degraded status as second-class citizens, the Redevelopment Commission has indicated that up to $19 million might be bonded for aquatics, soccer and Little League ball fields.
Owing to the comprehensive absence of transportation infrastructure not exclusively dependent on private cars, all of these recreation facilities, if built, will require even more auto-centric infrastructure to use than we have now ... and what we have now needs to be drastically altered.
All this money for sports, and just two years ago, didn't the departing England administration insists that the million bucks or so needed to facilitate downtown street conversions simply couldn't be found?
It becomes increasingly evident that prioritization has been removed from the gene pool of the city's political culture.
What's missing isn't money. It's balls ... and I'm not talking about the kind you fungo, either.
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