(Colonial Manor edition): GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 28 February 2020.

Good morning, and HAPPY GRAVITY HEAD.

There's really only one important New Agony story from the past week. Rumors from previous weeks were confirmed, and it was revealed that the Colonial Manor shopping center on Charlestown Road was sold to new owners, and also that a plan had been minted by these new owners for its revival ... without any involvement whatever from City Hall.

Hmm, how could it be? Doesn't the mayor write all our business plans?

Of course, this didn't stop Gahan's goons from claiming credit, or the Redevelopment Star Chamber from tithing a cool million for infrastructure improvements. They're nakedly shameless, and largely unable to tell truth unvarnished by sheer spin.

But in reality, as opposed the Gahan dreamworld, this is a far better outcome than the one proffered as an election year gambit by the mayor-for-life and his sycophants in 2019. Let's let councilman Al Knable explain. His take is more diplomatic than it needs to be, but otherwise lands right on the money.

Al Knable NA City Council at Large

February 25

I’m happy to see a truly private-public partnership afoot to move this important area of New Albany forward.

I applaud the efforts of the citizens in the surrounding neighborhood, the Economic Redevelopment team-including the Mayor- and the Hoagland Group for bringing us to this auspicious point.

The city’s pledge of $1,000,000 for infrastructure improvement is wholly appropriate and has my full support.

The arrangement announced today is clearly superior to the 2019 proposal, rejected by a majority of the City Council, which would have required a purchase price of approximately $2,600,000 (significantly above assessed value) in taxpayer money and cast our city’s government in the awkward role of commercial property manager.

A savings of $1,600,000 and major private investment in our community validates the Council’s 2019 decision and the patience of all involved.

I join everyone in welcoming today’s encouraging news and the promise of better days ahead for Colonial Manor.

City Hall's spellbindingly self-serving propaganda can be found here: City Partners with Investor to Revitalize Charlestown Road Corridor.

John Boyle's coverage at the News&Bune features testimony from 5th district councilman Josh Turner.

Colonial Manor to receive significant facelift with multimillion-dollar investment

NEW ALBANY — A point of emphasis for New Albany City Council member Josh Turner has been his push to “revive District 5.”

It’s his hope that the district he serves can soon witness a transformation, at which point that motto will become “come thrive in District 5” ...

... Turner said he’s happy to see this type of project come to the area, noting the grassroots effort from residents it took to get this outcome. Some early plans from the city’s previous attempts to purchase the property included residential developments, which Turner did not see as a good fit.

“If the current administration had its way there would have been housing here, and I’m really glad a private investor stepped up and is bringing some much needed amenities and services to the area,” he said. “This is a big win for the district.”

Last April the city council rejected the redevelopment commission’s plan to purchase the property for $2.6 million.

Though the city is not the main driver of the project, it is still partnering with the developer in the form of a $1 million investment.

In other developments, it appears that Team Gahan's appalling public housing policies have resulted in taxpayers absorbing a big bill for the mayor's avarice.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Has Bob Lane settled his lawsuit against NAHA for wrongful termination?

An analysis of the local chain newspaper's "opinion" page reveals something that should surprise no living human.

ON THE AVENUES: There is a complete absence of diversity among regular News and Tribune columnists.

Prohibitionism must be guarded against.

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Paternalism, classism and prohibitionism in Family Dollar's neighborhood.

And, with Harvey Weinstein down for the count ...

New Albany too? How will #MeToo play out here at the grassroots?

In closing, a reminder: Why wait for Lent to give up organized religion?

ON THE AVENUES: The 2019 remix, "You want some fries with your redevelopment?"

This column originally was published on July 10, 2014. Until only recently the prospects for creative redevelopment at Colonial Manor seemed permanently belly-up, but now residents living nearby have rallied to the idea of participating in the Redevelopment Commission's closed-door, fix-is-in process. Predictably this has raised the hackles of the spider-web-encrusted monastics seated there, but anything to mobilize the grassroots is good, whether or not Irving Joshua agrees (and rest assured, he doesn't). 

Hint: "Corridor study." Mayor Jeff Gahan is on record as dismissive of the idea, which is the single best reason to pursue it. 

---

ON THE AVENUES: You want some fries with your redevelopment?

“Fast food is popular because it's convenient, it's cheap, and it tastes good. But the real cost of eating fast food never appears on the menu.”
-- Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

Once upon a time someone asked me where I live.

I said, “Well, have you heard the old adage about the clinical definition of insanity?”

“Sure,” he replied. “The definition of insanity is repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results.”

“Exactly. So, to answer your question, I live in the place where the definition of insanity is precisely the same wording as the mission statement for our city’s economic and redevelopment commissions.”

“I don’t understand at all. Can you repeat that?”

“But of course. Our elected officials repeat it twice a month.”

---

A boy can dream of subversion, revolution and the unexplored, virginal territory lying just outside the box, but in reality, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Tahiti that the moribund stretch of Charlestown Road by the McDonald’s and Colonial Manor would ever be “redeveloped” in any substantially different way today than it first was developed in the early 1970s.

After all, these latest cookie-cutter chain components are interchangeable. Once a Wendy’s and KFC; now a Hardee’s and Domino’s Pizza. Once an impossibly ugly suburban-style strip center with a Kroger, now just as unattractive and sparsely occupied by a Cash Saver grocery (it’s a member of One Southern Indiana, dog), this latter occupancy hailed by England Doug and Maalox the Conqueror as one of the supreme achievements of Hizzoner’s somnolent third mayoral term.

It is left to Irving Joshua, who surely has more unmonitored power than any non-elected official in town, and consequently wields the redevelopment commission as a veritable rolled-up newspaper of outmoded notions, to step forward and connect the dots with another usual platitude, fortuitously captured by the newspaper at a meeting scheduled during the afternoon, when most working people can’t attend:

Joshua, president of the redevelopment commission, said (Hardee’s and Domino’s) are “improving the likelihood we can keep the grocery store there.”

That’s a deeply depressing measure of how far the bar has descended here in Truck Through City, where pallet-nailing is considered a high-tech job, and Chick-fil-A is the preferred place for 50th anniversary dinners, just so long as they’re procured via the handy automotive window.

At the same time, it shows just how crazily out of touch I’ve become with respect to what passes for modernity these days – thankfully, gratefully and happily so.

I try to imagine what it must be like to hear of a new burger joint coming to the neighborhood -- to immediately fall to my knees, and to break into tears of joy, fulfillment and release: “I never, ever thought I’d live to see the day when we’d have a Zaxby’s down the street. I just might eat there every single night.”

Whatever. Let’s hope you have Obamacare when your heart explodes.

---

Consequently, it is with an overwhelmingly vast chasm of a psychological disconnectedness that I attempt to fathom the desperation and bleakness of lives spent contemplating the advent of a new fast-food sandwich, as seen on television, all the better for the Archer Daniels Midland Triple Fatburger to be greeted by social media with millions of “likes,” retweets and varied regurgitations of “hosanna.”

How on earth these people can root for extractive, exploitative corporations is beyond me. Maybe I’m getting old. Then again, maybe uneducated self-delusion is the new national pastime.

And yet … the recurring problem amid my rampant cynicism is that yes, I actually can see both sides of it – and I’m fully implicated in one of them.

In my own chosen world, there are regular explosions of pulse-quickening geekery, exclusionary narcissism and pure avarice when it comes to the impending release of a rare, highly-rated beer, and to be perfectly fair, I’m forced to concede that as the peculiarly American stains of materialism and consumerism go, the differences between Taco Bell envy and Westvleteren hoarding are of degree only. They’re both representative of materialism and consumerism run amok.

It makes me want to refrain from both food and drink, and retreat to the confines of my library to select real, tactile books, and begin to reacquaint myself with the world of ideas.

That’s because I’m nothing if not stubborn. Ideas matter, and yet at present, this country is a dismally stupid place. It also is mercilessly tacky. Perpetual tsunamis of crass materialism and consumerist greed define the American experience, and what’s worse, we’re not content to populate our own continent as 24-7 shopping zombies, pausing occasionally to thank Jesus for the blessed privilege of possessing our baubles.

No, we must infect the remainder of the planet, too. The evangelistic impulse is the same, whether capitalistic or religious. To me, David Novak’s rah-rah cheer for the shareholders of Yum Brands plays a bit too much like “Heil, Hitler” – and as a non-book-reading, insultingly wealthy white man, his cadence is even less symmetrical when translated into Mandarin, Brazilian Portuguese or Klingon.

We can’t even have useful innovations like universal health care, for fear that dollars invested in human happiness might detract from expenditures on the very same food rendering us in need of hospitalization in the first place, not to mention whatever is left to purchase vital plastic trinkets from overseas manufacturers.

There it is, in a nutshell, and something to ponder while you’re sinking your cavity-ridden teeth into some Papa John’s:

We celebrate rope-a-dope notions like the "American Dream," aiming to marginalize an excluded majority, while perpetually bedazzling constituents with hopes of a consumer paradise here on Earth, buttressed by religious and patriotic superstition, even as the overall playing field is kept firmly tilted toward wealth where it already reposes.

Come to think of it, that’s the Republican Party's platform.

To paraphrase the late Warren Zevon, America … New Albany … your shit’s fucked up.

---

Recent columns:

June 27: ON THE AVENUES: Mourning (and alcohol) in America, circa 1984.

June 18: ON THE AVENUES: Let's lift our voices for another verse of "Talking Seventh Inning Blues."

May 28: ON THE AVENUES: Challenges are forever, but downtown New Albany's food and drink purveyors keep on keeping on.

May 21: ON THE AVENUES: "Pints&union, where the classic beer hits keep right on pouring."

Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning: "We are people who just passionately want to create stronger and better neighborhoods and help build a better community together."

"If it wasn't an election year it would have passed 9-0 ... this opportunity is gone." Anyone got a Kleenex?

As Team Gahan continues to pout, the grassroots activists behind Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning continue to work. The report below was filed at Facebook.

At this point, shouldn't City Hall and the Democrats be resolving to be a part of the solution, rather than staging election-year temper tantrums?

Hello, everybody!

It has been an extremely busy past month for our Colonial Manor Redevelopment Citizens Coalition. So, time for an update.

We have gathered and curated an ever-growing collection of community feedback and taken an expanded look at our marketing data. We have held conversations with the Colonial Manor owner in California and his representation locally. And, we have spent many hours identifying and initiating one-on-one conversations with locally-owned businesses and organizations that may be thinking of expanding, considering new or additional locations, or just starting up.

We have worked to match our listening data and demographics up with businesses and organizations that may be a really good match for redeveloped and renovated space. Plus, we've been working hard to build some strategic partnerships between businesses, helping some of them figure out how they could perhaps mutually support and strengthen each other in a space like that.

Last week, we brought just a few of those businesses and organizations together with an owner's representative to begin to explore some possibilities, discuss needs and vision, and take a quick survey of some potential funding sources and options for support.

NOW---we want to broaden our vision and potential partners! If you have a local retail or service business, a cafe or restaurant, or are a not-for-profit seeking to make an increased impact in serving our community---and may be interested in exploring a renewed Colonial Manor---we would love to draw you into our exciting conversation.

Our aim as volunteers is to support, encourage, and assist the owner in any way we can with building a new day for the center and, in turn, enhancing the quality of life for our local neighborhoods. Have some ideas? Want to get together with some of us and talk? Interested in volunteering? Just send us a message and let's do some dreaming and help some of our local businesses and organizations perhaps make some extraordinary things happen.

Thanks to all who have continued to be encouragers, helpers, and sources of learning for us. We aren't real estate developers. We have no ownership interests in that development. We are just a growing group of ordinary, everyday people (with other jobs!), big hearts, relentless energy, diverse skills and talents, and what we believe is a bit of a gift for listening and matching people/businesses with our neighborhoods and our community's needs.

We are people who just passionately want to create stronger and better neighborhoods and help build a better community together. Please continue to support us in any way you can as we continue the journey.

In truth, Team Gahan's politically-motivated ineptitude produced its Colonial Manor fiasco -- but neighborhood activists continue "moving forward."

We've established that Team Gahan is prone to being scandalously "butthurt" (as the kids like to say) whenever it is challenged with facts, as when city council finally asserted itself to the exclusion of secretive backroom redevelopment fixes like the one proposed at Colonial Manor.

Council rejects Gahan's, Redevelopment's Colonial Manor tax increment financing lollapalooza by a 5-4 vote. Alterations to come?

One major reversal in eight years, and they're emptying the lockers of rubber truncheons and doing that Goebbels jig.

As usual, the truth lies elsewhere.

Let's focus on Jeff Gahan's breathtakingly brazen string of fake facts and outright lies about Colonial Manor.

If one takes the time to unravel Team Gahan's ongoing Colonial Manor narrative, it is filled with imprecise cutting, sloppy pasting and inept choreography. In short, City Hall whiffed on three pitches. Yesterday councilman and mayoral aspirant (Independent) Dan Coffey brought us up to date.

I learned Wednesday that the offer from the Redevelopment Commission to purchase the Colonial Shopping Center is no longer an option. I was told there was a short time for the city to comply with the offer and could not do so with the conditions set forth by the council. Too many questions about this project went unanswered and the public's need to know didn't seem to be considered. Congratulations to the people who stood firm and wouldn't allow this project to happen without your input. Democracy still works if given the chance!

Josh Turner, the GOP's candidate for New Albany's 5th district council and a grassroots organizer seeking a future for Colonial Manor, agreed and replied to Coffey with an excellent point.

Just think, if this wasn’t over appraisal it would already be purchased and five people at Redevelopment would have complete control over the property.

Because the forever smug Team Gahan's "process" at Colonial Manor was strictly reactive, with election year political imperatives hastily brought to fruition in order to check the mortal threat of citizen participation, Redevelopment's proposed purchase price for the Colonial Manor property was higher then the appraisals, legally necessitating the council vote.

As Turner points out, had City Hall taken the time to finesse the price, Redevelopment already would be planning the mixed use development with its chosen no-bid, professionally contracted architects, engineers and consultants, all of whom are eager to tithe to the closed circle of pay-to-play patronage.

Gahan's first quarter CFA-4 has been filed, and it's another massive, quivering edifice of pay-to-play cash.

The most interesting thing about this Gahanesque fiasco has been the least documented. Redevelopment director Staten conceded that the city had sought the assistance of private sector developer Chad Sprigler, whose family owns apartments nearby on Slate Run Road, in order to "negotiate" with Colonial Manor's owners -- to speak their language.

This is weird even by David Duggins' tortuous standards of illogic. I asked an insider to comment.

Why use an apartment builder to negotiate a commercial lot for the city? They are under-qualified to do this because it is not their core strength. Sprigler must have been paid a fee for doing so. Moreover, how does this connect the dots to the Spriglers' deal at Cross Creek apartments on Green Valley? The Spriglers couldn't handle the expense of necessary repairs, and so the city bailed them out (at a loss to the Spriglers) via the New Albany Housing Authority. Now NAHA will spend $4 million to make them into voucher housing. Of course Sprigler took a tax deduction for the loss, and now they're doing the city's job at Colonial Manor. I've yet to see Gahan botch one as badly as Colonial Manor, but that's political desperation for you.

With Team Gahan pouting and churlish, we look to community organizer Kathy Copas for a nugget of genuine interest amid Redevelopment's smoldering wreckage. Take careful note of the significance. Without any "help" from the city, ground level networking has independent small businesses talking to Kathy and each other, providing a glimpse of what can happen at the grassroots prior to top-down, politically-motivated TIF solutions.

When politicians like Gahan seek mistakenly to take credit for things like the concentration of food and drink establishments downtown, the best route to dismiss the chugging of Kool-Aid is to think about the way entrepreneurs and investors actually make decisions: on the ground, talking to others like them, applying shoe leather to walking and networking -- precisely the way Kathy recounts her discussions with business owners.

This is the way sustainable critical mass comes about. Team Gahan can't grasp it because not one of the mayor's closest associates ever owned a small indie business. In truth, they haven't got a clue about the way small indie businesses really work.

Take it away, Kathy.

Hundreds more have now watched the video of last week's Colonial Manor Listening Session and many have joined with the rest of us in continuing to think, dream, and strategize around how we can all do more to give Colonial Manor a real future and a hope.

As we contemplate further actions by our city officials, one especially interesting and exciting thing has been consistently bubbling up, this time from a number of our community's existing small business owners. Several of them have emerged and said something along the lines of---"Well, my little business already offers that in another part of town. If people want that for Colonial Manor, and we had some help and support, we would love to expand to Colonial Manor, too!"

Wow. Does anyone else find that as full of incredible possibilities as we do? What else have you seen, heard, or been thinking about since we gathered? Let's keep the listening and conversation going! #colonialmanorrising

Colonial Manor listening? Yesterday Gahan, Dickey and the DemoDisneyDixiecrats displayed with unmistakable clarity just how little integrity they have left in the tank.

A portrait in hemorrhoids?

It was great to hear from "the" Democrat at the Colonial Manor listening session -- the one, single, solitary Democratic political figure willing to speak for attribution.

The lone Democratic political type to so much as dare making comments at last evening's Colonial Manor listening session was at-large council candidate Maury Goldberg, and he's to be applauded for doing so.

To be sure, the event's grassroots organizers have been consistent in minimizing politics during the course of their neighborhood advocacy. This is understandable, and even commendable.

Unfortunately, it's a election year; politics is about distributing power, and this fact lurks in the background whether desired or not. As such, three of the four currently declared mayoral candidates were present at last night's Colonial Manor chat (White, Seabrook and Coffey).

Aspiring mayor for life Jeff Gahan skipped the meeting, having launched his own petulant #MyNA broadside earlier in the afternoon.

Let's focus on Jeff Gahan's breathtakingly brazen string of fake facts and outright lies about Colonial Manor.

Of the four city council persons voting in favor of Gahan’s and Adam Dickey's more-of-the-usual-boilerplate redevelopment fix, only 5th district representative Matt Nash attended a meeting held in his own district. Perhaps exhausted by the necessity of fluffing Dear Leader round-the-clock, councilmen Bob Caesar, Greg Phipps and Pat McLaughlin did not show their faces, and not unexpectedly, Silent Nash said absolutely nothing -- not even so much as an introduction or the re-assurance that he was there to listen and would take listening seriously.

You're entitled to my opinion, so here it is: the listening session was another in a series of horridly disconnected and non-responsive showings by local Democrats, who are too busy smugly power-brokering behind closed doors to even attempt engaging with the community's stakeholders.

But before summarizing, I want to allow chief organizer Kathy Copas her say. I greatly admire what she's trying to do.

Now that we're all safely home and settling in for the night, a million thanks once again from our Colonial Manor Redevelopment Citizens Coalition for a wonderful evening of listening, reflection, connection, and fun. Independents, Democrats, and Republicans all together in one room for an evening, all being courteous and respectful of one another's ideas, words, and presence. Everyone who was there should just feel incredibly proud. And thanks so much to the Facebook Live viewers and watch parties, too, that added to our experience of being connected. If we can manage to regularly use structured listening techniques---coupled with real-time technology---to talk about challenging issues, there's just no end to what we can accomplish. So many people volunteered tonight and helped with everything from door prizes to registration to set up and technology. Without the risk of leaving someone out, thanks again to ALL of you for all you do to make New Albany a better and stronger community. We're just getting started! #colonialmanorrising

I can't say enough positive things about the attitude displayed by Kathy and her associates. They're showing us what grassroots involvement can mean.

And, sadly, local Democrats are responding in the only way they know how, with an equally compelling display of detachment, arrogance and pure spite -- which Gahan's Wednesday afternoon video displayed with sheer, numbing pettiness.

Gahan’s absolute power corrupts, and it corrupts absolutely.

He "plays politics" every minute of every day of his public life, and when someone disagrees with him, they’re accused of ... wait for it ... "playing politics."

Gahan seems to believe that his tenure as mayor and the very practice of politics in New Albany are intertwined, synonymous and inseparable -- that Gahan himself is entitled to a monopoly on political power solely because the press clippings he paid someone else our tax dollars to write depict him in such glowing, infallible terms.

But forget Gahan's giggly, goofy uncle persona. It's his inner bully -- the thug deep down -- that compelled yesterday's video, which was posted for the sole purpose of bullying and humiliating a group of sincere grassroots stakeholders.

Don't forget this image.

AT THIS "PUBLIC" MEETING, GAHAN DIDN'T ALLOW THE PUBLIC TO SPEAK.

This incessant urge to reassert his primacy is further proof of Gahan's mounting narcissistic imbalance. He has gathered far too much power for one ill-equipped man, and he's not using this power for the community's greater good.

Patronage, propaganda and power trips are not hopeful platforms for progress, are they? Fortunately, we can do something about it: #FireGahan2019

ON THE AVENUES: It's time for a change, and David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing.

Let's focus on Jeff Gahan's breathtakingly brazen string of fake facts and outright lies about Colonial Manor.

On Wednesday afternoon just a few hours before the listening event sponsored by Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning, City Hall released a propaganda video aimed at (a) exaggerating Jeff Gahan's role in the Colonial Manor redevelopment process, and (b) insulting the grassroots community group that came into existence precisely because Gahan and his crack team of minions hadn't been doing anything about Colonial Manor.

As Bluegill succinctly observed:

In which Mayor Jeff Gahan uses city tax dollars to produce a highly biased, politically charged propaganda piece that distorts the story to make himself look better for re-election.

Amid the din of Kool-Aid slurping, let's take a closer look at the video with the aim of exposing Gahan's shameless whoppers.

1

1. It's true that on April 18, Mayor Jeff Gahan's administration brought plans to city council for the purchase of Colonial Manor. Gahan himself yet again refused to attend to take ownership of his brilliant redevelopment instincts, second only to Robert Moses in scope and coolness. However, no plans for redevelopment were brought to council -- while six "test" designs had been hoisted up the flagpole at the non-input public meeting (see below), redevelopment director Joshua Staten insisted the administration would do some listening of its own after the purchase of the property.

Truth meter #1: Half credit.

2

2. Colonial Manor has been moribund for so very long that Team Gahan displayed not one jot of interest in its redevelopment for seven whole years until the "deserving neighbors" began organizing themselves, thus holding out the prospect of interfering with Team Gahan's usual top-down, pay-to-play monetization arrangements.

Truth meter #2: Half credit.

3

3. An essentially meaningless claim. The city's new comprehensive plan explains theoretical development goals for the entire city, not any one area.

Truth meter #3: Irrelevant.

4

4. Number four is a doozy. A public meeting was held, but only Team Gahan's operatives were allowed to speak, and requests for public "preferences" were limited to six hastily concocted "options" from one of Gahan's campaign donor engineers. Duh: Of course neighbors "want something done to the property." You could glean as much from Facebook. After all, they'd already assembled a grassroots lobby group to drive the conversation, hence the need for Gahan's non-input meeting: to squelch this conversation and take back control for his Indianapolis corporate campaign donors.

Truth meter #4: Bald-faced, faked-fact lie. 

5

5. In which Gahan refers to $2.6 million in tax increment financing (TIF) bonds as "cash reserves" when in essence they're credit cards, then further asserts that TIF is not a form of borrowing. Among other problems, these "cash reserves" deprive schools of property tax revenue, leading to school corporation referendums like the one responsible for the Slate Run school construction taking place behind Colonial Manor. Do you think Gahan lies like this about his own household finances?

Truth meter #5: Egregious, bald-faced, faked-fact lie. 

6

6. The city did vote 5-4 against something, but whether it was an "effort to bring new life" cannot be known because the vote pertained only to acquiring the property, not to future plans (if any) to redevelop it.

Truth meter #6: Half credit. 

7

7. We saw the first such "exploration" of options at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, when the video being dissected here was released. By his choice of timing, Gahan chose quite consciously (and with obvious malice) to undercut the grassroots efforts of the very same "neighbors" he'd already refused to allow to speak at the non-input public meeting he held for his own benefit.

With friends like Jeff Gahan, who needs enemas?

Truth meter #7: Perhaps the only truthful statement of the bunch. 

8

8. Gahan closes with his trademark messy verbiage. He "encourages everyone" (they're no longer "neighbors," are they?) to "encourage" -- that's right, the same verb twice in one sentence, attesting to the sloppiness of writing herein -- city council to "support revitalization efforts for Colonial Manor."

Note the first use of "revitalization" as opposed to "redevelopment," and also consider that Gahan doesn't specify which revitalization efforts "everyone" should support. Is it Gahan's politically motivated boilerplate or the efforts area residents already had started on their own with absolutely no help from the mayor or his flunkies, including their council person Matt Nash, who attended Wednesday's neighborhood meeting but couldn't muster the gumption to address the crowd, identify himself and let them know that he's listening.

Truth meter #8: See how Gahan acts when he can't have his toys?

Summary: Today's City Hall video shambles depicts Gahan at his self-interested, narcissistic and bullying nadir, with a truthfulness tally of roughly 25%, and still no apparent interest in the needs of people as opposed to the fix-is-in, play-to-play patronage boondoggle that local "pretend progressives" tolerate and seem to feel is justified as long as local Democrats mouth platitudes about other issues.

How many lies does Gahan need to tell before Democrats see the handwriting on the wall?

There's a solution. Vote David White for Mayor in the Democratic primary, and let's give the governing clique a purifying flush.

Reminder: Wednesday evening is the Colonial Manor Redevelopment Citizens Coalition Listening Session.

The Facebook page is Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning and the listening session is Wednesday evening, 6:30 p.m. at the First Church of God (corner of Charlestown Road and Silver Street). I'll be there. Following are two follow-up passages from the movement's prime mover, Kathy Copas.

So we are in the home stretch now and SO looking forward to welcoming and hearing from each and every one of you Wednesday night who wants to speak, share, ask questions, just visit and meet others, or sit quietly and listen. Tell your neighbors and friends. Please come and cast a big vision for Colonial Manor. Remember---no matter what happens with all of our city officials and the countless meetings, resolutions, and voting about purchase or no purchase, Colonial Manor and the challenges of it and Charlestown Road are still right here in front of us each day. And, it is still up to all of us to continue to be proactive about casting creative vision and then figuring out how to move mountains, if necessary, to help make great things happen. See you there!

And ...

Thanks to all who have asked what they can still do/offer in support of our Colonial Manor Listening Session tomorrow night. Here are a few opportunities. Please private message us or post up if you want to help out. Right now, we could still use some bottled water, two-liter soft drinks, cups, and ice. We know some of you are clearing out Easter treats this week. So, if you have any leftover Easter candy, chips, cheese, crackers, fruit or anything simple like that, just bring it along! We could also use any donations you would like to make directly to the First Church of God for being kind enough to host us. And, we can always use more door prizes! Maybe you have a beautiful house or garden item that no longer works for your home. Maybe you're downsizing and have an item or two that would make a good prize. Or, perhaps you're willing to put together a gift basket or pick up a gift card someone would enjoy. The more door prizes, the more fun we can have between our serious listening time. For all you do, thank you!

ON THE AVENUES: Amid Deaf Gahan's "victory" over grassroots activists at Colonial Manor, the toxic paranoia is no less rancid.

There are many available spaces in the six-acre shopping center we all know as Colonial Manor. It was built in 1965, and its absentee owners are asking $4 - $6 per square foot. Leasing rates in a strip center near the hospital are twice this cost, as they are in the Elsby Building downtown.

Several weeks back, neighborhood stakeholder frustration with Colonial Manor's long decline led to the emergence of that rarest of New Albanian beasts: A well-organized, focused and potentially sustainable group of grassroots activists calling itself Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning.

The group will have a listening session on April 24.

Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning explains itself.

The purpose of this citizen-organized, grassroots, non-partisan Facebook Group is to envision possibilities and positive ideas for the potential redevelopment of the Colonial Manor center area on Charlestown Road in New Albany. It is designed to collect ideas, primarily from those living in or doing business within a one-mile radius of Colonial Manor.

Governmental thoughts about Colonial Manor's future have been bubbling tepidly on the back burner for so long that a balanced context is difficult, although as long ago as 2009, former council person John Gonder's discussion of a different kind of redevelopment for sites like Colonial Manor was falling on Deaf ears (Gahan was council president at the time).

Suffice to say that in 2019, when Team #MyNA Gahan belatedly learned there was a grassroots neighborhood initiative underway, the ruling clique reacted to this thoughtful, well-conceived and firmly non-partisan effort by sending Warren Nash in riot gear running through inhumane City Hall corridors screaming "EBOLA! We're all gonna DIE!"

And so the Redevelopment Commission's upper echelon of fixers went into late-night hyperspace. Boilerplate plans from a campaign donor firm quickly were cobbled together, a public comment session with no public comment allowed was held, the battered TIF piggy bank was shaken down to its hooves, and voila -- here's the official plan, straight from the unprecedented mind of Dear Leader, ready to be rubber-stamped just in time for the primary election.

City one step closer to purchasing Colonial Manor Shopping Center, by Chris Morris (Religion Today Newspaper)

New Albany City Council must approve purchase

... The New Albany Redevelopment Commission unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday to purchase the property for $2.6 million. The city council will also have to sign off on the purchase before the lot is put on the market. The commission will then take proposals from developers on not only a purchase price, but what vision they may have for the property.

"If we don't do something there I am pretty sure whoever owns the property is not going to do anything with it," said Irving Joshua, redevelopment commission president. "At this point for us to move forward we have got to go get this."

The money to purchase the property would come out of the Charlestown Road Tax Increment Financing fund.

Then, down at the housing authority where he works at a job given to him by the Democratic Party's power brokers, councilman Matt Nash received a text from Adam "Tricky" Dickey informing Nash that the Colonial Manor TIF Plan was his, to be used wisely in an uphill re-election campaign.

Okay, this is satire. But is satire still satire when it's true?

Meanwhile the surgeon general (or maybe it was Dr. Tom) has advised rational, fact-based onlookers in New Albany to stop shaking their heads so often, lest spinal damage result. After all, TIF can do anything, but can it pay for community chiropractic?

It's endlessly fascinating to watch Gahanism in action. It's about power, money and control; all ideas must emanate from the same centralized "genius" source, although it bears repeating that if absolute power corrupts absolutely, you'd have to go to Belarus or Pyongyang to find a better example of it than right here in Anchor City.

ON THE AVENUES: Gahan's hoarding of power and money is a threat to New Albany's future.

Gahan's pursuit of power has been relentless, marked by an insatiable thirst for money and a fetish for silence and secrecy, as opposed to discussion and openness.

Gahan's primary objective has been the accumulation of as much unrestrained political power as can be gained by a big fish in this otherwise small pond; to raise as much money as he possibly can through pay-to-play campaign finance patronage; and to deploy his concentration of power and money to limit decision-making to an inner circle of cliquish elites.

And yet with the monkeys uncaged and the circus clowns manning the wheel of the paranoid Good Ship Gahan-plop, the Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning effort marches forward, oblivious to the murmurings and innuendo from City Hall, which cannot imagine that anyone would differ with its narrative of goodness and perfection -- and those who do, well, whose payroll are THEY on, anyway?

Have something you want your New Albany City Council members to hear about Colonial Manor, the importance of citizen input and oversight, and your concerns about the process so far and into the future? The council will act this Thursday, 7 p.m., in the 3rd Floor assembly room, on the recommendation for the city's purchase of the six-acre tract of land that is presently Colonial Manor and propose a process for how decision making will proceed from here. Yes, it is Holy Week and a lot of us are busy with that but this is very important, too. Please come if you can to speak your thoughts or just to cheer some of your neighbors and friends on, as we continue to work so tirelessly to build accountability and transparency into the Colonial Manor decision-making process. Can't attend? Contact your city council representative in advance to voice your thoughts and ideas. If you need to know who your council representative is and how to contact them, PM or post up here and one of our team will help you. For all you continue to do for our New Albany neighborhoods, thank you! #colonialmanorrising

Let's wish those amazing Colonial Manor neighborhood stakeholders the best. I'll be live-tweeting from the council chambers this Thursday evening.

Who knows? The 5th district councilman might actually speak this time.

---

Recent columns:

April 9: ON THE AVENUES: It's time for a change, and David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing.


April 2: ON THE AVENUES: Donnie Blevins tells his story.

March 26: ON THE AVENUES: Gahan's hoarding of power and money is a threat to New Albany's future.

March 19: ON THE AVENUES: In 1989, six months of traveling fabulously in Europe.

City Hall's staged Colonial Manor farce: It was INFORMATIONAL, you see, not COMMENTATIONAL. Deaf Gahan can't help it if voters don't know the lingo.

Last week's sadly shambolic City Hall charade on the topic of Colonial Manor's future proved a confusing, painful and infuriating experience for those community residents who hadn't previously witnessed the ridiculous extent to which power and money have gone straight to an erstwhile veneer salesman's head.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: It's the Colonial Manor video Jeff Gahan didn't want you to see last night.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 20: Buying and selling a city? Our master list of 59 Gahan wheel-greasers is a pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.

Numerous flabbergasted and angry social media conversations have taken place in the aftermath of the meeting. However this one may be the most unintentionally revealing of all. In it, a Gahan appointee and apologist is shocked ... SHOCKED that Dear Leader would ever squelch public opinion.

Oh, we see it clearly now. Clique semantics explain everything, don't they?

When Mayor-for-Life Jeff M. Gahan presents a public meeting, don't forget to consult the bureaucratic glossary to determine whether it's a public comment meeting or an informational meeting. 

Never mind that the glossary's city web site link probably is broken -- or maybe the link leads to the web sites of Clark Dietz, Jacobi Toombs and Lanz, HWC Engineering -- better yet, all three.

Okay, so it's informational versus public commentational, eh? Well, Jeff Gahan's elite insiders know the difference fairly well, don't they?

Conversely, regular folks living in the neighborhood near Colonial Manor evidently are so naive and pathetically unversed in Standard Gahanesque Gobbledygook that they thought Dear Leader might actually be interested in listening to them -- but it was an informational meeting, meaning the information originates at the top with unelected "fix-stays-in" committees, and then trickles down to the rest of us.

Not only that, but the trickle's about to become even more homogenized and cookie-cutter in nature. Note the timeline and methodology of the city's Colonial Manor development choices:

• Caught by surprise by neighborhood activism, City Hall scrambles to regain control over Colonial Manor propaganda
• An architect from TEG is hurriedly engaged and e-mailed boilerplate sections from the comprehensive plan and updated zoning code
• Hastily produced proposals use these boilerplate sections to restrict the city's gaze to "what our codes stipulate," as though they were Biblical injunctions 
• The future? The city's development "ideas" become increasingly center of the target for the sake of ease: minimum design expense and maximum monetization via the usual pay-to-play "contractual" suspects

Informational sessions versus public comment sessions?

Please, functionaries. Stop insulting the public's intelligence. Yes, we know you believe the grassroots hive mind cannot compete with City Hall's pathological need for top-down power, but New Albany has a genuinely meaningful public comment opportunity coming on May 7, and the informational cue is this:

#FireGahan2019

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: It's the Colonial Manor video Jeff Gahan didn't want you to see last night.

There is so much to say about Wednesday evening's typically orchestrated top-down, talk-down-to-the-public gathering at Fairmont that we'll be returning later with more thoughts on what might have been the Jeff Gahan's worst ever misstep. 

Gahan and crew very hastily organized the gathering as a response to rumors of grassroots activism. This was for the sole purpose of asserting Gahan's power to maintain complete personal control of whatever happens (or does not) at the old Colonial Manor acreage on Charlestown Road -- which the city doesn't even own.

By now it should be clear that Gahan has an unvarying, rote default setting as it pertains to governance: HIS way, or nothing. It's a default setting manifested by excessive secrecy, open intimidation and absolute control on behalf of a small ruling elite buttressed by special interest cash from afar.

That's it.

There is nothing else.

Gahanism is authoritarianism -- penny-ante, small pond and prom-planning-committee caliber, but authoritarianism all the same.

Kathy Copas and fellow neighborhood activists produced the video seen here. After informing the city of their ongoing work, their group was told not to bother; when the cool kids were finished cashing Gahan campaign finance checks from Clark Dietz, HWC Engineering, United Consulting and Jacobi Toombs and Lanz, redevelopment would offer awesome plans of its own, ones thrown together in a matter of days by architects from The Estopinol Group -- because reliable outside donors always know best about such matters.

Thus the meeting, and the city's hurried mash-up of "holy comprehensive plan" bromides and boilerplate drawings cribbed from the internet over Bud Light Mang-O-Ritas at the Roadhouse.

Copas and crew imagined their voices would be fairly heard at a "public" meeting, only to learn what the rest of us have known about Jeff Gahan for many years: it's HIS town, HIS power elite, and HIS way -- now youngsters, shut your mouths, have a seat, and be ready to endorse what the vapid governing clique already has determined without your participation.

Last evening Gahan didn't respect area residents. He doesn't respect you, either, unless you're holding a envelope stuffed with out-of-town cash. Why, then, should anyone NOT benefiting from Gahan's fixes respect HIM, much less re-elect him?

Here's another video clip, one of the Green Mouse's all-time personal favorites. In it the Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu addresses a handpicked crowd in Bucharest in December, 1989. The speech was supposed to be like all the ones before, with the crowd venerating Ceausescu and screaming cheers of joy for his unvarnished genius.

Instead, it took only seconds for people to begin booing. Like a deer in the headlights, the strongman froze. Perhaps at this precise moment he understood the game was up. In fact, the end of the regime was only days away.

Or maybe Ceausescu was saying to himself: "Wait. This isn't why I'm here -- no not at all."

Turns out he was right.

Innovative ways of redeveloping Colonial Manor -- or, things John Gonder was talking about ten years ago.

In 2015 after two city council terms John Gonder ran afoul of the mayor's DemoDisneyDixiecratic patronage machine and lost his re-election bid, moving on to other things in life. John had a blog but didn't use it all that often; when he chose to write, the results invariably were thoughtful and indicative of interests outside our city's self-imposed political boxes.

On Sunday evening John made this comment to yesterday's Colonial Manor post: Colonial Manor redevelopment visioning to be the subject of a public meeting on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.

This run at revitalizing Colonial Manor caused me to look back at something from ten years ago. It might still be worth considering. The points relevant to the current situation appear in the final three paragraphs. Here's the link.

That's right. Colonial Manor was being discussed ten years ago during Barack Obama's first term -- and Doug England's last. Since John no longer actively blogs, I'm reprinting the entire post from March 22, 2009, but consider clicking through to view the comments.

There seems to be one big question about future prospects for refurbishment at Colonial Manor: Can anything positive happen there without the use of tax increment financing (TIF) money?

---

Back to the Drawingboard. Please.

At the most recent City Council meeting, March 19, a development which could have resulted in the relocation of the Charlestown Road Wendy's to a site farther out Charlestown Road was nixed by the Council.

For those who don't know, the Wendy's project cuts out a portion of a large lot for the restaurant while leaving the current zoning in place for an "L" shaped piece of property surrounding the restaurant on two sides.

In an attempt to extract something meaningful from the proceedings, I would like to offer an idea that could have possibly yielded a different outcome. At least it could have changed my vote. Unfortunately I'm not holding my breath waiting for the missing ingredient, because that missing ingredient is found in such short supply among developers hereabouts. The ingredient? It goes by several names: innovative thought, creative approaches, getting ahead of the curve, anticipatory development in recognition of the changes suggested by new environmental realities.

That is, after three or four years on the New Albany Plan Commission and now starting the second year on the City Council, I have yet to see more than about two developments that might fall outside the unflattering catchall categorization of cookie cutter sameness.

Look at any of the patio home developments. These are offered as a response to a demographic change in our culture. Aging people are downsizing their households yet still want independence and convenience. So far, so good. A curbside assessment of the typical patio home,however, looks like, in Jeopardy fashion, an answer to the question "Where can my car and I go so both of us feel at home?" The street presentation is of struggle for dominance between the garage and the living quarters. From all appearances, the cars are winning out with the most prominent digs.

Are the developers stupid? The buyers? No, I don't think so. On the contrary, the patio homes I've seen from the inside appear well built and comfortable and suited to the needs of the people living there. But it would be difficult to find a current mode of housing design that more glaringly exemplifies the cookie cutter school of thought.

But the Wendy's development, ( if indeed it is a Wendy's, and there's truly no way to know that at this juncture, according to counsel ) is a commercial development, so what's that got to do with cookie cutters and patio homes? Again, it's the lack of a creative or innovative approach to the puzzle of what to do with that parcel of land. Clearly no one who holds an economic interest in the land sees doing nothing, or next to nothing, as a viable option, otherwise they might consider leasing it to an agricultural entrepreneur who could open an "in-town" small scale u-pick farm. Would there be enough customers for such a thing? Surely not in that end of town.

I just erased several paragraphs in which I suggest what the developers could do with the land. The reality is, that just like with the patio homes, the developers failed to offer anything innovative. As if to underscore the fact that they were offering nothing innovative, they weren't even offering a plan to bring in a new hamburger joint, they were simply going to move an existing hamburger joint to a new location; on the same road yet. And for this accommodation of the developers' plans, the existing neighborhood residents were being asked to suck it up in the cause of progress and free markets.

So maybe it shouldn't all be left up to the developer.

One of the best ways this type of situation could be headed off in the future is for the City of New Albany to begin a reorientation away from greenfield development and toward REdevelopment. (As was stated in the Council meeting, fast food restaurants typically use up a building in a pre-ordained period of years and then move to a new location.) Charlestown Road from Eighth Street out to Klerner Lane is showing signs of commercial and residential neglect and deterioration.

A prime example is the Colonial Manor shopping center, across the street from the current Wendy's site, abandoned several years ago by Kroger in favor of a new site across from the proposed Wendy's site. If the city were to acquire the property it could solicit proposals from developers to take that property back to the level of vibrancy needed to make a strong neighborhood. The use of Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) funds could be used to buy the property thus freeing the developer from the carrying cost of the project during development. Direction by the Plan Commission, through the RFP, could shape the REdevelopment in ways most beneficial for the entire community. The developer would make a profit but only by producing a worthwhile, cohesive project. And when the developer is out of the deal the EDIT funds would be returned.

This would be a better way to steer the development of the community in ways that truly benefit the entire community, not simply the narrow interests of the developers. If Colonial Manor were, in fact, redeveloped it is quite possible that the entire Charlestown Road corridor would be seen as more desirable and unfortunate situations such as the one involving the Wendy's project might be avoided.

Colonial Manor redevelopment visioning to be the subject of a public meeting on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.

One must remember at all times that whatever it is, Jeff Gahan was for it before anyone else -- unless it's bad, then he was against it from the very start. Dear Leader does not make mistakes, and genuinely believes he's been error-free since 2012.

Which doesn't explain the Bud Light Mang-O-Rita in his hand.

As the emperor's acolytes fit him for some brand new clothes, we turn to the Colonial Manor center on Charlestown Road. Redevelopment is having a public meeting, and we can only hope that the advent of Josh Staten as director implies an actual willingness to listen at such events. I'm optimistic. Staten studied at the University of Louisville with John Gilderbloom, and that's strong medicine.

Folks in the neighborhood have a Facebook page called Colonial Manor Redevelopment Visioning.

The purpose of this citizen-organized, grassroots, non-partisan Facebook Group is to envision possibilities and positive ideas for the potential redevelopment of the Colonial Manor center area on Charlestown Road in New Albany. It is designed to collect ideas, primarily from those living in or doing business within a one-mile radius of Colonial Manor, in advance of a city redevelopment public hearing set for Wednesday, March 20, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. This public hearing is at Fairmont Elementary School and you are cordially invited and encouraged to attend and express your thoughts and ideas then, too.

It's interesting how all this came about. Grassroots activists attended more than one public meeting to petition for action, and were told by the administration that it already was so shocked and appalled by the recent demise of Arby's that the imminent awarding of no-bid contracts to outside consulting firms for top-down revitalization plans was a lead-pipe certainty. Piggy banks have ears, and at Gahan's vault they're twitching in anticipation. 

Well, I always told you the higher-ups were eating lunch at Arby's -- and of course, the problems in the Colonial Manor area long predate the dismantlement of a single unfortunate artery-clogging fast-food grease trap, but I suppose we must begin somewhere.

As such, see you Wednesday. I'll be there early, hoping this time will be different, and preparing to drink heavily if it isn't ... and either way, #FireGahan2019