New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
SoIN is taking a stand by saying the names of those violently killed by systemic oppression and racism. We will be meeting in the downtown areas of both New Albany and Jeffersonville to write the names of those killed as a reminder that we must not be silent and we must say their names. If you are unable to join us for the group event, please participate at your own home as you can. Chalk your sidewalks or driveways with their names.
We will not and must not be silent any longer.
For the New Albany location, we will meet at the corner of Spring and Pearl near the Bicentennial Park.
For the Jeffersonville location, we will meet at the base of the Big Four Bridge.
Good. It's about time for an awakening.
I think it's impressive and commendable that four of the five members of New Albany's Human Rights Commission (HRC)* are displaying admirable social conscience during these potentially transformational times.
Calle Janson (an organizer of Say Their Names), Paul Kiger, Jennifer Ortiz and Ken Brooks all can be viewed on their Facebook pages referencing Black Lives Matter and advocating ... well, for HUMAN RIGHTS. After all, it's why the commission is there, right?
The fifth member of the HRC is Warren Nash, whose public utterances recently have been confined to the usual semi-comprehensible partisan political sycophancy -- for the Democratic Party as well as the municipal administration for which he specializes in backroom fixes, envelope shuttling and the occasion snarl directed against modernity.
Sadly, it's easy to imagine Nash bringing the sidewalk chalking to the Board of Works and Safety for approval and deep editing.
Louisville's ever-shrinking Greg Fischer needs to resign. Nash desperately needs to retire. He is Miss Trixie to Jeff Gahan's Gus Levy (look it up).
The party itself has had almost nothing to say about events in America for the past two weeks. Neither has Gahan, nor any of the mayor's team. I cannot locate an example of an elected Democratic Party office holder in New Albany making a public utterance about social justice, BLM or any other topic that has dominated the national discourse recently.
They just dig deeper and deeper into the Down Low Bunker.
You'd think maybe councilman Greg Phipps would show signs of a pulse, given that he fancies himself the enabler of the HRC -- which has been crippled and hamstrung since its inception (and two re-inceptions) by the very same Democratic Party that enjoys taking credit for the commission just as long as it isn't visible.
To repeat: The Democratic Party controls New Albany. It is a profoundly propaganda-tainted conservative institution -- as I refer to it without a shred of satiric exaggeration as the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party -- albeit with a good number of progressive-leaning individuals residing inside the party's ideological tent, who for whatever reason constantly defer to the Gahan/Nash elder regressive faction that amply keeps the pay-to-play wheels greased, but possess all the social conscience of a lump of clay.
Consequently, Black Lives Matter probably will come to Birdseye before it arrives at Hauss Square. Local Democrats are absolutely terrified of BLM -- not because of what IT is, but who THEY are ... and aren't.
If anyone cocooned within the bunker-bound Team Gahan inner ruling circle would like to read this book, I'll buy it for them.
It limits my potential monetary exposure to what, three or four people? I'll even buy a copy for the hall of fame automobile supremacist Jim Rice of HWC Campaign Engineering.
But no matter.
New Albany's power brokers in municipal government don't read books, do they? Least of all the monetizer at the top.
A surprising study of anti-pedestrian urban planning in America.
Most readers will be unaware that pedestrian deaths have skyrocketed since the 1970s; in 2018 alone, 6,283 pedestrians were killed trying to cross the street. Former Streetsblog editor Schmitt takes us for an uncomfortable ride into the hard realities of why pedestrians are more unsafe now than they've been in decades.
In a book that will sit comfortably on the shelf next to Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, Schmitt provides an exhaustively researched study of the intersection of automobiles and pedestrians. The author uncovers a car-obsessed America whose civic planning is designed to discriminate against walkers while accommodating motorists. Unlike, for example, many European countries, the motorist has more rights than the pedestrian in the U.S.
Even worse, as Schmitt explains, thinly veiled racism and classism are at the heart of many of the traffic laws that essentially treat pedestrians as second-class citizens. Pedestrians hurt or killed by cars are often blamed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet the problem, Schmitt shows convincingly, is often the flawed road systems themselves. And it’s not just the engineers who design these systems, but also the politicians who allow poor urban planning to go unchecked.
The narrative is a deft balance of anecdotal and informational content, emphasizing the real-life human tragedies caused by anti-pedestrian bias but also backing it up with statistical research. Most importantly, Schmitt debunks common assumptions that pedestrian deaths are either blameless random accidents or, more often, the result of laziness or inattentiveness on the part of the walker.
In reality, the culprit is a sometimes-lethal combination of badly designed streets, increasingly larger vehicles on the road, poorly estimated speed limits, and a lack of crosswalks, among other infrastructural failures.
Bravely exposes the human cost of public and political indifference toward pedestrian safety.
You must work towards community self-sufficiency, fully knowing you won’t get all the way there.
There is a tradeoff between growth and stability.
Can you imagine anyone -- ANYONE -- amid the Team Gahan cadres capable of thinking along these lines?
Preparing for Recovery
With the community stabilized, it’s now time to shift to preparing for a recovery. Here is a list of ten things to work on once you're ready:
Waive Home Occupation Restrictions.
Legalize Neighborhood Essential Services.
Kickstart Entrepreneurs.
Legalize Housing Adaptations.
Make Quick and Lean Investments in Walking and Biking.
End Parking Requirements.
Start Growing Food.
Thicken Civic Infrastructure.
Begin Reorienting Bureaucracies.
Change How You Measure Success.
Here's the portion we're most in danger of botching, because Gahan's first instinct will be to ask HWC to "study" how we might use this assistance, thus revving up the same old pay-to-play bull feces.
State and Federal “Assistance”
It is likely that local governments will be offered some form of recovery assistance from the state and/or federal governments. In advance of these funds being offered, be proactive in having a discussion about how to respond ...
... Infrastructure spending is popular for state and federal officials because it creates immediate jobs and the potential for long-term growth. For local governments, new infrastructure has some of those same benefits, but also the additional long-term liability of now having to service and maintain that infrastructure. Over time, these hasty transactions rarely work out well for local communities, most of which are already burdened by years of deferred maintenance.
If you are asked or have a chance to influence deliberations, tell your state and federal officials that cities would benefit more from cash assistance than aid channeled through a narrow infrastructure funnel. Local government officials are more influential than they may think, so know that your recommendation could be impactful.
If the only form of assistance provided to local government ends up being an infrastructure appropriation, take steps to focus those funds. You want to select projects with the most upside benefit and the least additional long-term commitment. When considering projects:
Prioritize maintenance over new capacity.
Prioritize below-ground infrastructure over above-ground.
Prioritize neighborhoods that are more than 75 years old.
When making infrastructure investments, the more you can let a neighborhood assessment of urgent needs guide your priorities, the more effective your efforts will be. Ground yourself in your people and places. The less time you spend chasing the shiny object or projecting theoretical new growth opportunities, the more likely your investments will help the community prosper.
It should surprise no one that in New Albany, a political process currently being held hostage by mayor and city council president has no room for responsiveness on ANY matter of importance, much less the perennially abused street grid.
I doubt their automobile centrism has abated with quarantine. We'll see. My own period of detachment from involvement with public affairs originally was slated to expire on June 30.
We'll see about THAT, too. Let's have a look at genuine leadership out in Oakland.
The California city isn’t the first to experiment with car restrictions in the coronavirus pandemic, but its plan to discourage drivers is the most extensive.
Last week, Oakland, California, announced a bold answer to shelter-in-place coronavirus claustrophobia: To create more outdoor space and safer corridors for essential travel by foot or bike, the city would restrict access to vehicles on nearly 74 miles of city street — about 10% of the city’s street network.
“In this unprecedented moment we must do everything we can to ensure the safety and well-being of all families across our city,” stated Mayor Libby Schaaf. “Closing roads means opening up our city.”
The “slow streets” initiative, which began on Saturday and will roll out in four segments through the duration of the coronavirus emergency, comes in response to citizen concerns about overcrowded conditions in parks and on sidewalks during the coronavirus lockdown. It’s not really a “closure,” despite the mayor’s phrasing: Emergency vehicles like police cars, fire trucks and ambulances are still permitted to enter these new pedestrian corridors, as are delivery vehicles and residential traffic. In fact, no drivers will be ticketed if they do drive on these streets.
The change is mostly a firm psychological nudge, said Warren Logan, the director of mobility policy and interagency relations in the Oakland mayor’s office. Confronted by a pair of traffic signs and a barricade blocking one lane, drivers now have to think twice about entering these streets. Many will consider taking a different route. And all will hopefully drive more mindfully when they enter a slow-streets zone — an increasingly important concern in cities where the relative absence of traffic has inspired a wave of speeding violations. “When they do turn into the street, they do it carefully,” Logan said.
After a week in action, Oakland officials say the streets are working as planned — no collisions, no reported instances of unsafe gathering, and more families able to move (and dance) at spacious distances. As if out of an earlier era, small children are riding bikes in the middle of the street without their parents needing to worry. “This is an opportunity to remember that these are our streets, not just streets for cars,” Logan said.
The same flawed HWC Engineering campaign donations-meet-street grid bait 'n' switch that wasn't working prior to the pandemic hasn't grown any more sensible with sheltering at home. It was crap then, and so it remains.
Reports from many cities indicate a surge in aggressive speeding, and with it, automobile crashes. The statistics are remarkable and alarming in light of how much traffic itself has declined, with many businesses closed and residents sheltering at home ...
... The most common tendency I've seen in reporting of this phenomenon is to blame "reckless driving." In other words, it's just that people who have sociopathic and destructive urges are out there on the empty roads playing Ricky Bobby and indulging them, to tragic effect. Is that the whole story?
This pat answer is consistent with our societal bias toward always talking about traffic violence in terms of individual behavior: either it was just a tragic accident, or the people involved should have been paying more attention. Mainstream media rarely interrogate how street design induces drivers to behave in certain ways. Yet we've written about this again and again on Strong Towns, because the evidence is clear: when you design streets to make high speeds comfortable, you make tragedy statistically inevitable.
Over 40,000 Americans die in traffic in a normal year. The number of pedestrians alone killed by U.S. drivers from 2008 to 2017 averages out to one every 1 hour and 46 minutes. If we're appalled by the level of carnage on our roads while most of us are sheltering in place, we should certainly be appalled by the level of carnage the rest of the time. If we think there's an epidemic of reckless driving right now, it's just a continuation of the epidemics of reckless driving that we witnessed in America in 2019, and 2018, and 2017, et cetera. The status quo isn't anything to want to return to here.
The coronavirus shutdowns are making more obvious a pre-existing epidemic of reckless street design.
If so, I don't remember it -- apart from a meme or two of bragging, sans substantiation, about tree plantings that we seldom see. The infernal hum of chain saws are another story.
Look, here's the thing ... as in the other questions we ask ... how about some proof?
You know, something that actually shows the number of trees gone, as opposed to the number planted. We have an arborist and a tree board, right?
Surely they have hard, real statistics.
Can we see the statistics?
Because of the stats aren't there, how can the self-congratulatory memes be anything other than fake news?
The Kentucky city is the fastest-warming urban heat island in the US – and as its temperature has risen, its tree cover has plummeted
There are parts of Louisville, Kentucky, that are enveloped in green, where towering trees arc over broad avenues and walkers, joggers and bikers enjoy beautiful parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who drew up plans for Manhattan’s Central Park.
Even on the hottest days of summer, these neighbourhoods feel comparatively refreshing next to the more sun-baked quarters of the city, where shade is often an unavailable commodity on the street.
Cities are their own climates, often hotter than their surroundings due to the way surfaces like asphalt trap heat even as cars and buildings exude it. When a city is markedly warmer than surrounding rural areas, it is called an urban heat island – and Louisville ranks among the worst heat islands in the US, according to a 2014 study, with an average temperature difference of 2.7C (4.8F). Worse still, a 2012 study by Georgia Tech’s Urban Climate Lab found that Louisville was the fastest-warming urban heat island in the nation.
Part of the reason for Louisville’s temperature extremes is geography. But a lot of it comes down to trees ...
"We can’t let car companies again shape the vision for our future; if we don’t dream big now, we may never get the chance again. Let’s let’s elevate a different kind of transportation infrastructure that recognizes universal basic mobility as a human right and brings it to every man, woman, and child. If we don’t think of micromobility as the serious solution to a whole host of societal and environmental problems, then who will?"
I'll never forget, back when we were asking only that City Hall implement the entirety of Jeff Speck's street grid network proposals -- which in addition to calling for a reversion to two-way traffic prioritized a state-of-the-art downtown bicycle network -- these potentially transformative improvements were blithely characterized as outlandish by Greg Phipps (councilman) and Greg Roberts (ESNA). Modernity was cackled out of the room as going way too far for primeval New Gahanians, not just by these two, but by other "progressives" who seldom are.
By their unwillingness to do the homework, to try to understand exactly what Speck was aiming at, and to do battle ... with their abject eagerness to stroke Dear Leader's ego ... community "leaders" like these abetted Jeff Gahan's whopper of a bait 'n' switch on the street grid. Promises abandoned, Gahan commissioned HWC Engineering to gut a wonderful walkability and biking enhancement program, recasting it into yet another re-election omnibus paving project, retaining the basic two-way reversion but rendering it almost useless through timidity and incomprehension.
Then again, when's the last time you've seen Gahan or any of his sycophants walking or biking?
Yes, Dear Leader gifted us with two-way streets, and they've been mildly effective, albeit neutered by constraints into insensibility. Perhaps that's why the drivers are still treating downtown streets like race tracks.
But that's fine. Just push that button and the drivers from elsewhere will let you cross the street, just so long as it doesn't add seconds to their cross-town commute.
In the 1930s big auto dreamed up freeways and demanded massive car infrastructure. Micromobility needs its own Futurama—one where cars are marginalized.
There’s a quote that’s stuck with me for some time from Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom: “You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so f***ing smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?”
American urbanists and bike advocates are smart, or at least well informed. We know how important cycling is. We are educated about cycling cities in other parts of the world and how they are so much better for health, well-being, economics, traffic, pollution, climate, equity, personal freedom, and on and on.
But if we’re so smart how come we lose so goddamn always?
Why is the best we seem to be able to accomplish just a few miles of striped asphalt bike “lanes,” or if we’re lucky, a few blocks of plastic pylons—“protected” bike lanes?
Our current model is to beg for twigs
More often than not, bike infrastructure is created reactively. Typically in response to a collision or near collision with a car, an individual or advocacy group identifies a single route that needs better infrastructure. We gather community support and lobby local officials for the desired change, trying as hard as we can to ask for the cheapest, smallest changes so that our requests will be seen as realistic.
What’s the problem with this model?
It’s like imagining a bridge and asking for twigs—useless, unable to bear any meaningful weight, easily broken. And it’s treating bike infrastructure like a hopeless charity case.
This makes bike infrastructure seem like a small, special-interest demand that produces no real results in terms of shifting to sustainable transportation, and it makes those giving up road space and tax dollars feel as though they are supporting a hopeless charity.
But when roads, highways, and bridges are designed and built, they aren’t done one neighborhood at a time, one city-council approval at a time. We don’t build a few miles of track, or lay down some asphalt wherever there is “local support” and then leave 10-mile gaps in between.
And yet this is exactly how we “plan” bike infrastructure.
Bike lanes are intermittent at best in most North American cities, and since they are usually paint jobs that put cyclists between fast-moving traffic and parked cars with doors that capriciously swing open, only experienced riders brave them. The lanes are easily blocked anyway, by police, delivery trucks, and film crews, if not random cars banking on the low likelihood of being ticketed.
This kind of bike “infrastructure” doesn’t actually do very much to protect existing cyclists, let alone encourage and inspire the general population to start cycling.
Why are we settling for easily broken twigs? The total number of people on bikes and other micromobility modes like scooters and skateboards is large and growing. An enormous force has been divided and conquered, splintered among thousands of neighborhoods ...
Divided is the way we're kept by the country's Gahans. It is purposeful. If you intend to insist on being characterized as a "progressive," maybe a good place to start is to progress past the insipid lies and self-aggrandizing campaign finance schemes of the local C-minus students, and start standing up for grassroots solutions calculated to improve the place where you live.
Yesterday we had a look-see at the progress regress of this year's campaign to date, during which Slick Jeffie and the DemoDisneyDixiecrats have focused almost entirely on the mayor's ability to obey state law and produce a suitable annual budgetary snapshot.
Republicans have not been the only listeners who've responded by suggesting we speak instead about Gahan's massive accumulated debt, but as an example of what's being missed, consider neighborhood crime.
Our friend D shared this thought on Facebook. It might be the best expression of the way optics propel Gahan in Oz; it's all about how things appear, and never about whether they actually function.
"To your point re: 'We've not heard an exchange of ideas about opioid use, drug addiction or their corollaries of neighborhood crime.' As someone (one of many in our community) who has been personally affected by drug-induced/related crime at my home, I reached out to one of Gahan's handlers earlier this year to see if we could get the Mayor (and perhaps the Chief) to host a town hall meeting to discuss what we as citizens could do to help police in their efforts to make our community safer.
"I'm quoting the response I received, 'That might be good for your neighbors and the community, but that wouldn't be good for Jeff.'
"I was told that they'd circle back to the idea after the primary. Now, call me crazy, but if our elected officials are doing it right, isn't what's good for the community and its citizens ALSO good for our elected officials? Apparently not in this version of New Albany, Indiana."
D not unexpectedly adds that Team Gahan hasn't gotten around to holding this meeting, even post-primary. Grassroots organizing has proceeded as City Hall keeps their efforts at arm's length, terrified of how it might make the Genius of the Floodplain look in reality, as opposed to fantasy.
I can hear Greg Phipps now: "But he bulldozed the homeless camp, didn't he?"
The Floyd Democrats say that the Floyd Republicans are lying about Gahan increasing New Albany’s long term debt load.
Instead of just saying “It ain’t so”, why don’t the Dems just publish the long term debt obligations when Gahan took office 8 years ago and the debt obligations now?
Huh?
Jeff Gillenwater wrote a very good answer:
If the financial record is so great, why not just post the actual numbers? How much has the City’s annual budget increased since Gahan and a majority Democratic City Council took office? How many tens of millions of dollars of additional long term debt has the City incurred during that tenure? When will it be paid off and where is the money to do so coming from? Where, on a scale that actually goes up to AAA, does the A+ financial rating actually fit? It seems odd to accuse others of lying when you won’t provide any actual figures or evidence yourself. As local political leaders, you agree that all those numbers should be transparent to the public, right? And, in fairness, any current office holder, candidate, or party supporter is welcome to provide those numbers to the public as well. I assume you all know them, because otherwise you wouldn’t be supporting the city’s current direction, right? I’d hate to think so many people were encouraging secrecy before an election.
It's the building at 141 East Main Street, the former Liz at Home and more recently GrayStone Performance, located right across the street from the Reisz Mahal (new city hall). Let's dive right in. These links are to Facebook; the website is here.
Clean Socks Hope & 8th Street Pizza, in New Albany, IN, is the area's only pay-it-forward pizzeria serving serving Floyd, Harrison and Clark counties since 2007.
We are a nonprofit organization offering hand tossed pizzas, desserts, drinks, dine-in and carry out service, games and much more. Delivery available via DoorDash app. For your next pizza craving, visit Clean Socks Hope & 8th Street Pizza in New Albany.
We believe that God created all people, including the poor with the ability to help themselves and others. That means that we do not fall into the routine perpetual feeding and clothing programs of those around us, but equip those we serve with the skills that will create self-worth and self-sufficiency that can change the lives of men, women and children for generations to come.
Yesterday our friend Andrew began spreading the word that 8th Street Pizza will be moving to 141 East Main Street.
8th Street Pizza is moving locations from midtown to downtown New Albany. Some businesses like Pints&union, Wick's New Albany, The Earl, and 1816 Modern Kitchen & Drinks have supported their mission of feeding the homeless in New Albany.
Now 8th Street Pizza has seen an influx of NEW homeless people in Downtown New Albany and really wants to help the downtown area. They are moving to 141 East Main Street. The focus will still be an outreach location but will also serve late-night New York Style Pizza by the slice.
Jeffrey S. Minton is the man behind Clean Socks Hope and 8th Street Pizza and wanted me to help spread the word to the new neighbors in downtown and I figured this would be one of the best methods.
The "Share a Slice" campaign has been a kick and they look to expand it by offering a "Share A Slice" Wall that anyone can donate to and take from. No questions asked...
If you haven't heard of the amazing nonprofit pizza place, then please take the time to get a piece of 8th Street Pizza soon. I'll even share a slice with you!
So far, so good. NA Confidential doesn't do Christianity, but we broadly support this pizza-driven outreach, and the building in question might conceivably be more than just a pizzeria; the building's most recent owner installed dorm rooms upstairs. When I saw them, I thought: youth hostel.
Interestingly, this is one of those infrequent times when food and social issues actively collide, because to put it bluntly, City Hall's stance on homelessness is as clear as alluvial mud -- not at all clean like white socks. Ronald Reagan famously avoided saying the word "AIDS" aloud; Jeff Gahan's bugaboo is the word "homelessness," as he doesn't communicate well and as a suburbanite generally avoids topics he finds personally distasteful.
It hasn't been very long (July) since Gahan's homeless encampment demolition debacle.
It appears that Jeff Gahan is as adept at co-opting the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana as he has been in snookering Purported Progressives into hand-feeding him grapes. Gahan has picked a side he can control; if Dear Leader could bulldoze Exit Zero as a concept, then he'd do that, too.
Gahan is pathology, not policy.
Consequently, and eerily paralleling 8th Street Pizza's moving announcement, Exit 0 posted this commentary yesterday on Facebook.
We went scouting in New Albany today and found new signage to keep the homeless out of the town and several needles discarded off of a public trail. But the city continues to claim they do not have a drug addiction or homelsssness problem. Why make up signage and ban tents if we have no issue? Welcome to making homelessness illegal in New Albany. The needles were cleaned up so someone in the community does not get hurt. Continue to pray for our community.
NA Confidential supports Clean Socks Hope, 8th Street Pizza and Exit 0, and quite frankly, major league stones are required for anyone to set up a program of homeless outreach at a site directly across from the mayor's new showpiece City Hall.
This fascinating juxtaposition stands to be very interesting indeed, especially as we approach the election. Wouldn't it be good if Gahan chose to issue a public statement of support for what Clean Socks Hope and 8th Street Pizza is trying to do downtown?
Every time I hear the words “hard truth,” I reach for my song list.
George Jones knew quite well of which he sang.
You don't know who I am But I know all about you I've come to talk to you tonight About the things I've seen you do I've come to set the record straight I've come to shine the light on you Let me introduce myself I'm the cold hard truth
The only difference? In New Albany the self-lubricating clique knows good and well who we (the principled resistance) are, which makes for constant amusement as the enriched Gahanist Leading Element denies any and all acts of reading -- in the larger sense, we must take them at their word -- all the while snarling while issuing edicts and threats based on the words they didn’t see.
It’s like magic, the flawless intuition of C-minus students, and speaking of cold hard truth, here’s an admirably succinct pre-election summary of the incumbent mayor’s record from NA Confidential’s co-editor, Jeff Gillenwater.
Jeff Gahan, in conjunction with concurrent city councils, has doubled the city’s budget in eight years, saddled us with tens of millions of (often long term) debt, paid out millions in no-bid contracts to campaign donors, and refused to release and/or demand the release of project related financials. To make matters worse, the mayor regularly misleads and lies about it - campaigning on having “balanced” the budget (as legally required of every mayor), getting us out of debt (sewer debt, per former Mayor England’s plan that Gahan voted against), touting a fair to middling credit rating as top notch, and trying to take credit for the investment of others that he had nothing to do with. Any Democrat running for office who is not addressing those issues head on, out loud has no business squawking about “excessive” spending from others.
Specifically, excessive spending by Floyd County government, which for municipal Democrats serves as a convenient catch-all bogeyman of Godzilla-like dimension. Meanwhile the actual cold hard truthfulness of the charge would fit comfortably in a discarded peanut shell on the floor of the chain steakhouses they adore.
---
As noted previously at NA Confidential, it was instructive last weekend when years of bunker-bound non-engagement gave away to bile and rancor when a handful of Tricky Dickey's robotically programmed Democratic Party candidates suddenly veered from their canned scripts and began improvising out there on the digital hustings.
Surely Squire Adam worried that one of them might actually slip up and be truthful, and sure enough a fair measure of testy bile oozed through the cordon. It appears the Democrats genuinely do picture themselves besieged in the sacred Alamo, with barbarian enemies steadily closing in, endangering Jeff Gahan's only true masterpiece during a career of consummate time-serving mediocrity: Slick Jeffie's Astroglide-Driven Pay-to-Play Political Patronage Viagra Superstore.
It was exciting, but we knew it couldn't last. Among them was at-large city council candidate Sam Charbonneau, and I must commend Sam (and later Matt Nash) for venturing outside the Democratic Party’s traditional cordon of non-transparency.
No solutions? I'll shrug as you search NA Confidential’s 15-year-long back story for terms like Strong Towns, Jeff Speck, Institute for Local Self Reliance and AMIBA, and watch the solutions coming down like the rain we had been getting this year prior to the month of August.
The hard truth; the cold hard truth ... well, Sam’s not the only one trying to carry this particular tune across the street without being struck by drivers speeding unchecked through New Albany’s increasingly hazardous streets.
There is a city we both know I think you know the one I mean She gave her heart and soul to you You gave her only broken dreams You say you’re not the one to blame For all the heartaches she's been though I say you're nothing but a liar And I'm the cold hard truth
---
The second instance of a Democratic Party candidate dipping his toes ever so carefully into the churning water of genuine, open dialogue -- the very act of which reminded me of the days after the Iron Curtain disappeared, when all at once those stodgy brown-suited bureaucrats started ducking the microphones thrust at them by the now extinct breed known as “journalists” -- came when incumbent 5th district councilman Nash made a surprise comment on a Facebook post.
Matt Nash
I've seen prominent Republicans, even office holders with a (Dan) Coffey sign in their yard
Roger A. Baylor
Pray tell ...
MN
I just stated an actual fact, every other comment on here is speculation
Tim Deatrick
Name them if it is fact Nash come on back it up
MN
I'm not your green mouse, do a little detective work yourself. I'm out knocking doors in my district...and anyway my "handler" advised against it
RB
As a New Albanian politician, you're obviously under no obligation to back up your facts with evidence, as when you voted for the Reisz Mahal without uttering a single word aloud apart from "aye." It does seem a tad passive-aggressive to advertise your facts here, then duck and cover, but I'm glad you violated Adam's universal gag order against public discourse. Enough pin pricks and at some point THAT prick will deflate. Then again I always forget: no matter the topic or the logic, Republicans are worse, which justifies any political patronage excess (especially in hiring) or violation of common decency on the part of pretend Democrats. Is it lunchtime yet?
MN
Pretty disingenuous of you to say that since we had a couple hour conversation on the matter the night before the vote. As for proof of the only actual facts in this thread, I have reason for not announcing publicly, which will be clear if you figure out who it is.
RB
That's fine, but please don't make the mistake of thinking a barroom conversation with someone, (explicitly) off the record and the night prior to an important vote, satisfies your responsibility to explain your reasoning. Every other council member did, PUBLICLY. You successfully wrote a column for years; I commend this because I know how hard that is, but consequently it's also a higher standard for you as public official and I believe you're too smart not to know this.
Frustrated by the tone, Nick Vaughn sensibly followed up with some very good questions.
Instead of spreading unsubstantiated rumors, I’d prefer if our elected officials and candidates would answer some questions:
1. What do you plan to do/what should the city do when/if the Sherman Minton Bridge closes (at least partially)? How will you help mitigate the economic impact?
2. Do you support public/affordable housing? What will you do to ensure people who want to live in New Albany are able to?
3. What are your budgeting priorities? Rank your top 4 budget priorities in order.
4. How do you plan to be accessible to those who elected you (or didn’t)? How will you respond to constituent questions and concerns?
5. Council members and candidates: how will you use your power as a co-equal branch of local government to curb executive overreach? Do you support council approval for mayoral appointments (where law allows)?
At this point Sam returned to characterize these perfectly reasonable questions as being just the sort of vile trap a nasty Republican like Vaughn might set, and the train left the rails, but Ozzy Ozbourne isn’t No Show Jones, is he?
You think that you're a real mayor But you're nothing but a fool The way you run away from us The way you try to play it cool I'm gonna say this just one time Time is running out on you You best remember me my friend I am the cold hard truth
As an atheist I can't swear to God, but I can swear to Pete Townshend's songwriting oeuvre or the sheer olfactory glory of Pilsner Urquell that I do not personally dislike Sam, Matt or any of the other council candidates in this year's election cycle.
This said, I cannot support Democrats who support Gahan and contribute to the veneer king's absurd cult of personality.
Can New Albany withstand another four years of Gahan's cold hard self-deification?
Where do we start? Just in the past year we've seen TIF lotteries, the Reisz Mahal luxury city hall fix, the death of a skateboarder on uncalmed city streets, a planned sixty-mile recreational trail to nowhere, David Duggins' piece-by-piece dismantlement of Riverview Tower, the Colonial Manor public relations catastrophe -- and Gahan leapfrogging $500,000 in career earnings from pay-to-play political patronage.
NA Confidential has documented Gahan's bullying of a street department worker and a policeman, abetted by the News and Tribune abdication of its responsibility to cover cold hard news in New Albany, as opposed to the fluff human interest stories now choking the newsprint.
There have been Kool-Aid blackouts and loaded Rice Krispies Treats freakouts, and all the while the insider Democrats keep doubling down on Dear Leader -- and why not? They're at the apex of a cliquish and privileged pyramid, looking down their noses at the people they're supposed to be serving, but they have been too busy implementing Gahan's luxury enhancement program to give a damn.
And speaking of the breathtakingly unethical back-alley fixes that led to the Reisz Mahal malarkey, does anyone know how much a breach of contract settlement might save us in the long run?
Because if Team Seabrook wins, perhaps the unnecessary city hall can be cancelled. This would be the strongest possible message a New Municipal Order might send to inform the community that the adults at long last are back in the saddle.
You best remember me my friend
I am the cold hard truth
It's not a perfect analogy, but I'm sticking with it; urban "leadership", suburban thinking.
One fundamental fact about Jeff Gahan's unnecessary infrastructure expenditures is that future maintenance costs aren't considered amid the self-congratulatory stroking of his personality cult.
The underpinnings of the current financial crisis lie in a living arrangement—the American pattern of development—that does not financially support itself.
If you want a simple explanation for why our economy is stalled and cannot be restarted, it is this: Our places do not create wealth, they destroy wealth.
Our national economy is "all in" on the suburban experiment. We cannot sustain the trajectory we are on, but we've gone too far down the path to turn back.
How did we build such an amazing place before the home mortgage interest deduction? How did we accomplish this before zoning? What created this place before we had state and federal subsidies of local water and sewer systems?
We began writing about the Growth Ponzi Scheme in 2011 with a prominent series of articles that outlined the way American cities, towns and neighborhoods were growing themselves into insolvency. Since then, the Growth Ponzi Scheme has been discussed in numerous publications. The term, as we've defined it, continues to be widely used and cited.
On Thursday, it became apparent that Slick Jeffie's $500,000 stop light project at the intersection of Main and Bank, the urgent need for which has been apparent for at least six years, but which has been delayed until right NOW because of the mayor's self-glorification imperatives elsewhere, is coming to fruition only because of election year politics.
... The foreman seemed to be in a blind panic. He said the Bank/Main project had been labeled "emergency" election year status and therefore would be fast tracked, adding that the amount of work they have to get done would typically require three months -- ah, but Deaf Gahan has demanded that work be completed in 27 days.
Gahan's insistent it be finished before Harvest Homecoming even though this foreman admitted he had never had a project this size proceed that quickly and didn't know how they were going to get it done.
One might say okay, but at least it's finally being done -- except it should be a four-way stop project from the get-go, albeit inflated to fiscal grandiosity in a vacuum owing to the usual dictates of fluffery, and as oft times before, the independent businesspersons nearest the project, whose routines are to be interrupted most profoundly BEFORE Harvest Homecoming renders them inaccessible for a whole week, HADN'T BEEN TOLD ANYTHING AT ALL BY THE CITY ABOUT THE PROJECT.
Of course, this is standard dysfunctional procedure, and the way it works almost every time. If a mayoral flunky or visiting engineer tells the Bored of Works that stakeholders have been notified, it means none have been notified. Team Gahan's obligations tend to be toward self-perpetuation, not timely notification.
But on Thursday afternoon, September 12 ... with 27 days of compressed destruction about to commence on Monday, September 16, at long last Gahan got around to letting shopkeepers in on the program.
By proxy, of course.
Look what showed up at the end if the day yesterday. Delivered by the construction foreman, not a member of the administration. Charmingly vague, eh?
This is what "work starting Monday" looks like.
I don't blame the construction company for getting started right away, but Gahan's office needs to get it's head out of its ass and be up front about the impact this is going to have on businesses. Work starting today is fine, just SAY that work is starting today.
Like, that's not even a lie worth telling.
Construction slated to begin on the 16th actually began on Friday the 13th, so apparently it must be a lie worth telling because Gahan tells it every single time -- and still the sycophants sing the praises of a mayor whose only noteworthy skill is using an abacus to count the money given to him by no-bid contract seekers.
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