Indie Fest is today. Use it to reflect on whether we'll be able to get better.

Today is volume two of Indie Fest, and perhaps a time to pause and reflect. Questions and comments are many and varied.

• Is the local indie business community making progress toward unity? 
• How many local indie business people truly grasp the importance of street grid issues in furthering better conditions for business? 
• What has the city done in 2013 (i.e., marketing) to empower local indie businesses? 
• Are we ever going to address the iniquities of enforcement as they pertain to downtown parking? 
• Acknowledging that One Southern Indiana is as useless as ever, has Develop New Albany turned a corner and placed itself in a better position to, well, take positions? 

I could go on. You may have your own questions. The following was written in March, 2012.

No, I will not shut up, but thanks for the hint. Now, for more on the necessity of independent business empowerment.

Most of us accept that when it comes to power, a vacuum is a condition waiting to be filled. It almost always is.

In New Albany, with local government barely a blip on the chart, both Develop New Albany and One Southern Indiana (the latter to a lesser extent) exist to fill the vacuum created by the inexplicable, ongoing refusal of independent local business owners to organize themselves, to advance their economic interests as a bloc, and to take seriously their potential power as such a purpose-built collective.