ON THE AVENUES: A week that was wooden like Pinocchio and dry as an unused water park or an unfilled glass.

This is what happens when you realize (a) the draft of your weekly column isn't writing itself, and (b) the Green Mouse already has 900 words for the weekly Nawbany news wrap.

Besides, I've mostly stuck to my pledge to refrain from telling the truth about local affairs, a task made easier by the pandemic-borne restrictions and the general weirdness following in their wake. It's time to loosen up a little, a la Holcomb.

Consequently, this week ON THE AVENUES and GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW have merged.

And what a wild damn week this proved to be.

Friday afternoon Governor Eric Holcomb chose the international May Day celebration to announce a five-stage plan to reopen Indiana almost entirely by July 4 -- probably a coincidence, that national holiday of a date. There are so many moving parts to it that the Green Mouse prefers to return at a later date and explain ... once the drugs have worn off.

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On Thursday, as ever wishing to appear like he's socking it to those nasty Republicans, Mayor Jeff Gahan released one of his patented, socially distant videos -- because when you're agoraphobic, your whole life has been about keeping others as far away as possible.

Except that in this video, Gahan failed utterly to find his footing.

The upbeat ebullience and jingoism no longer comes naturally. He can still come out with the same words, but he can no longer even bring himself to believe them. For the first time in his life, there are signs of self-doubt. When he looks in the mirror, he now sees his reflection beginning to fragment. His persona that has been carefully constructed over 55 years to protect himself from the pain of being himself is falling apart. Yet still he can’t quite access the humility that might go some way to healing himself.

Okay, so the preceding passage was lifted word for word from The Guardian, speaking not of Gahan, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, the parallels are both instructive and striking.

With nothing whatever to do for six weeks since pandemic curve-flattening measures were imposed -- just about all of the responses have come from GOP-controlled county, state and federal governments -- the congenitally bunker-bound mayor seemed wooden, listless and uninspiring.

The font on his cheat sheet may have been too small. He also seemed distracted and sad, as if in mourning.

What about the odd ball cap -- can you make it out?

Yep, it's a municipal parks and recreation logo, right there on Gahan's pate covering, but why this of all things?

In the current time, shouldn't it be an ambulance driver's emblem, or a first responder's or hospital nurse's?

Ever since 9-11, when every politician started popping up dressed like firemen and cops, symbolism like this is carefully scripted -- and we already know that Gahan can't so much as take out the trash without post-it notes.

The answer, of course, is that the mayor surely is mourning. 

At a time when numerous townspeople are suffering, jobs have been lost, social inequalities exposed and the groundwork laid for pervasive revolution, the primary reason for Gahan's video Thursday was to inform his adoring public (cue the somber violins) that there cannot possibly be a season this summer for the River Run Family Water Park, our glorious aquatic center.

Fabric is torn and teeth ground together. The coronavirus dunnit, ya know.

Goat herders in Kosovo understand that the parks and recreation department is Gahan's baby, with a budget that went in a very few years from zero to somewhere around $3 million. Right now, with these park units mostly closed and the majority of functions suspended by the pandemic, the mayor's baby is under siege.

Not a word in six weeks about the homeless, the hungry or the vulnerable. But there's a video lamenting the enforced absence of a three-month water sports calendar at a catastrophically expensive facility built to cater to the better-off among us.

Bizarrely, seeing as River Run has hemorrhaged tax dollars since inception, even in the best of climate-altered Ohio Valley heat waves, keeping it closed and eliminating operating expenses might actually save the city money in 2020, even if we continue making the bond payments (assuming the city has the spare change lying around to do so).

We shouldn't assume that. At last Gahan faces a crisis, and if he somehow bluffs his way through the pandemic, there's the Sherman Minton idiocy coming next year.

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I thought occurrred to me, and I did a Google search: When was the last news item in which "HWC Engineering" and "New Albany Indiana" both appeared?

You'll really love this: it was in the Seymour Tribune in December, 2019.

After 12 years as mayor of Seymour, Craig Luedeman will embark on a new career in 2020.

Luedeman, 43, has been hired by HWC Engineering in Indianapolis. He will serve as a community business development manager for the firm beginning Jan. 6.

HWC is a full-service planning and infrastructure design firm with offices in Terre Haute, New Albany, Lafayette and Muncie. Although he will be based out of the Indianapolis office, he’ll be working remotely from his home, too, and will have to travel a lot, he said.

“Basically, I’ll be going to cities and counties and communities and trying to help them with getting grants and any kind of business development HWC does as far as transportation, bridges, wastewater, stormwater, all those areas and design services,” he said.

He will meet with mayors and other leaders across the state to discuss projects they may have and how HWC can assist with getting those projects accomplished.

Wondering what Slick Jeffie would be doing now if David White or Mark Seabrook had beaten him in 2019? Look homeward, Seymour, and remember this graphic from last year's mayoral campaign.

So, are Gahan's well-heeled revolving corporate donors (including but not limited to HWC) now lining up to contribute to local relief efforts in a time of 20% unemployment?

Is Mayor Gahan reminding them about the optics?

You know, "hey, um, guys -- well, thinking back to all that pay-to-play money you gave me, then I gave tons more of it back to you, um, uh, couldn't you maybe, like, send a little of it this way, you know, to taxpayers in their time of need?"

A city shakes with laughter. The mere thought prompts hilarity. Which comes first, being unable to imagine Gahan ever once thinking to ask them, or those well-dressed campaign donors conveniently failing to conceive of the idea on their own?

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But wait -- there's much more.

For instance, it appears that Extol Magazine now owns a stake in the New Albany Housing Authority. Hard to miss a privatization of such size; has Ben Carson already cashed the check?

I blame it all on COVID.

It's the NAHA monthly newsletter at the Joomag website, boasting a new cult of overpaid administrative personality in the offing, and I'm sure the official explanation will include trite Business First-speak about strategic partnerships in communications, synergy, and charitable backpack blessings.

Still, this would constitute a relationship, and ever since January 1, lifelong Republican Jason Applegate is destined to find these LinkedIn affairs troublesome owing to a nagging topic called "ethics."

Presumably he still owns Extol, and may or may not continue to serve as the magazine's chief ad sales person during the first year of his term as Democratic councilman-at-large.

As such, any connection whatever between the business affairs of a public agency like NAHA, with its yahoo poobah and sycophantic board both appointed by the mayor, and an outside entity owned by an elected official like Applegate is deserving of scrutiny.

Donald Trump may be president, and Gahan persist as mayor-for-life, but conflicts of interest have not magically disappeared from the planet. The newspaper in its pathetic death throes won't help us, pandemic or otherwise. Rather, ordinary citizens must keep their eyes fixed on the clique's gyrations, and demand answers to their pertinent questions.

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There's yet another news item: our new three-story tall anchor symbol on the south side of the parking garage. It's horrendous, but there is consolation in the absence of Dear Leader's gleaming mug.

Oft times in the past I've joked about the way Team Gahan's fondness for anchors has resulted in ubiquitous imagery alarmingly similar to the vainglorious shambles of Mussolini's Italy, spreading like a virus throughout the city.

For those just tuning in, all these anchors weren't ever submitted for approval to the city council -- and we already have had a city symbol on the books. But David "Bag Man" Duggins, previously referenced above as the newly buttoned-down overlord of NAHA, thought anchors looked cute.

Hamster wheels spun, a "marketing device" was born, and now we're drowning in the inanity of its ceaseless citywide repetition. The governing clique routinely scoffs at me for mentioning Mussolini's name, and yet the plain fact that few of them have bothered reading books implies an unfamiliarity with the way totalitarian systems use symbols. It's precisely the same, as with Gahan's parks department cap.

However, at this late date it has become evident that I may have been wrong slightly mistaken all along. It was pointed out to me recently that anchors can symbolize conditions quite apart from being deployed at water's bottom to prevent forward progress.

Life, stability, a connection: over time, it was only natural that the anchor became a symbol of love. This object is often depicted as a symbol of fidelity: the anchor gets firmly planted into the bottom of the ocean floor and provides the ship with the stability it needs. This is the same stability that two people who are in love with each other rediscover day after day.

Many couples get matching anchor tattoos to symbolise their eternal love. Or they wear jewelry embellished with this meaningful nautical symbol.

Turns out that Duggins is a devotee of the Hallmark Channel.

Anchor soft as an easy chair
Anchor fresh as the morning air
One anchor that is shared by two
I have found with you

Who'd have guessed?

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Recent columns:

April 23: ON THE AVENUES: Hemingway in a time of mercifully silent thunder.

April 16: ON THE AVENUES: Bunker mentalities, bunker abnormalities; bunker dreams, bunker screams.

April 9: ON THE AVENUES: #VoteEwwNoMatterWho, or when being realistic means being radical.

April 2: ON THE AVENUES: Pandemic, pornographic, pecksniffian. Just three random words until the booze kicks in.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

Last week was Harvest Homecoming, and my city's favorite amok time kept me pinned to the tarmac, but now we're back to what passes for normal here in New Gahania, where "We're All Here Because We're Not All THERE."

This week as a run-up to Decision 2019, I'm headed back into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five straight days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult. I've already made the case for Mark Seabrook as mayor.

Now let's return to the voluminous case against Gahanism in five informative and entertaining installments.

During Jeff Gahan's 2011 campaign for mayor, he proffered numerous private assurances to the effect that two-way streets and traffic calming would be priorities. In retrospect the fact that these promises were not a matter of the public record was ominous.

It took five years and another election for Gahan to actually get around to implementing a two-way grid reversion downtown, and hindsight also affords us the opportunity to see that the project, as eventually dumbed-down, emasculated and diluted from consultant Jeff Speck's suggestions -- shall we say, Gahanized? -- would not ever be brought to fruition without being tied to the system of pay-to-play political patronage which has been Gahan's only true accomplishment in office.

In short, until no-bid contracts for firms like HWC Engineering could be spider-webbed to produce maximum campaign finance enhancement, matters like safety and support for independent small businesses were of no consequence to Gahan ... and his minions, chief among them David Duggins, who at the time was married to HWC's local queenpin.

Hence the following Rubicon crossing moment, as recounted in ON THE AVENUES in late 2014. A little more than two years later, the starving public servant Duggins was dispatched to serve as Exalted Grand Poobah at the New Albany Housing Authority, seized by Gahan in the same fashion as European imperialists used to pluck colonies like lush grapes from the hands of vestal virgins, and handed to Duggins along with what probably was the single largest pay increase ever witnessed by a bureaucrat in New Albany.

But that's another story. Neither Gahan's street grid cowardice nor his poor taste in underlings was the first manifestation of Jeff Gahan's "inspired by Pyongyang" personality cult. In the grand tradition of failed watercolor artists, seminary students and cobblers, this middling veneer salesman concluded early in the game that destiny was clearing a path for his brilliance -- and we've been reminded of it on a daily basis ever since.

Why?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

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November 20, 2014

ON THE AVENUES: Really, the word “progressive” embarrasses you? That’s okay, because political cowardice disgusts me.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

We’ve all experienced those disturbing times during a verbal debate when you know you’ve been whipped.

Your opponent’s grasp of facts and overall rhetorical excellence has you pinned, wiggle room is gone, and disaster looms. You can hope only to limit the damage, and perhaps survive to debate another day.

So it was that one of those times did not occur on Tuesday morning, during or after the merchant meeting, when the city’s economic development director, David Duggins, both publicly and privately read me what he imagined was an impassioned riot act.

Unfortunately, all he managed to do was concede almost every point we’ve tried to make in the past year with respect to City Hall’s persistent errors, with the result that the third floor’s credibility reserve is coughing vapors.

It may have been exasperation, anger, envy at City Hall’s inability to respond in kind, or maybe even exhausted vulnerability. I’m intentionally omitting delusional arrogance, but whatever the rationale, Mr. Duggins’s words to me formed a composite, abject expression of institutional impotence, one reeking of raw political terror, and offering further ample evidence that especially since November 4, when the local Democratic Party suffered a purely epic thrashing at the polls, the once mighty machine’s threadbare wheels have thrown their bolts and are rolling merrily across the landscape.

The cement blocks are being fetched, a motley collection of meth heads stands by eager to salvage copper wiring, and a fleet of U-Hauls are being dispatched to facilitate the magic kingdom’s overdue housecleaning. Surveying the carnage, Dixiecrat Party chairman Adam Dickey has chosen the junior high school tactic of censoring social media, but it’ll take more than a prayer breakfast and another failed “get out the vote” drive to avoid impending disintegration.

My shovel’s in hand. Just tell me where to dig. Better yet, maybe a few of us can dig together.

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Mr. Duggins said many amazing things during the course of the group meeting and the private chat following it. Once my jaw dropped the first time, I left it safely on the floor to avoid over-exertion.

Although Mr. Duggins has not ever owned an independent local business, he freely offered marketing advice to those who do. He took a departed shop owner to task for being a complainer, when all she ever did was ask why the city allowed an adjoining building to fall quite literally to pieces outside her front window.

Perhaps the building commissioner was busy leveling historic buildings elsewhere.

Mr. Duggins openly conceded that the city does not customarily address sidewalks or sewers until a developer or realtor steps in, and an investor makes the first expenditure, and he brushed aside the counter argument that doing so beforehand actually might spur greater investment and constitute an actual economic development program, as opposed to piecemeal infusions of scattershot cash.

But it was my prodding on two-way streets, traffic calming and walkability that prompted the most memorable portion of the dialogue, and in the process, snapped this camel’s back.

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To reprise, it has long been NAC’s contention that compared with pro-active “by the usual chamber of commerce numbers” efforts aimed at economic development as defined by the tired imperative of the suburban industrial park, this administration has neither understood the economic implications of independent local business, nor has bothered to openly embrace any organized, overt effort or plan to be of assistance to them.

Furthermore, while conceding that an economic development plan for independent local businesses, especially those located in a bloc amid the historic business district core, might be an unfair challenge to One Southern Indiana caliber non-thinkers in the absence of readily identifiable templates, we’ve insisted that thinking outside self-imposed boxes is by no means impossible. After all, these independent local businesses have invested heavily in themselves, with time, money and enthusiasm – and with almost no assistance from municipal governmental entities apart from “moral” support.

This is why we’ve consistently pointed to the city’s street grid as the ideal, contemporary infrastructure “bonus” readily available for molding into an asset occupying an extensive geographical area, one that enhances the urban experience for residents and visitor alike, whether working, shopping or living in or near downtown.

We’ve pointed to walkable and bikeable streets as an organic whole, running two ways, completed and calmed, and connected to IU Southeast, the Purdue Center, the Greenway and the Knobs, comprising New Albany’s only realistic equivalent of a magnet and generator comparable to the Big Four Bridge in Jeffersonville, because what makes the Big Four so special is that it is not at all special – it is open and available for public use every single day, not every now and then.

So it might be with two-way streets and walkability in New Albany, which brings us to the Jeff Speck study, as commissioned a full two years after mayor Jeff Gahan took office, in spite of campaign assurances that street reform would be pursued energetically.

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And so it transpired that when queried about two-way streets, Mr. Duggins revealed a mind-blowing factoid guaranteed to impress, nay, astound, those who closely follow local events. For not once but twice, and in the strongest terms, he demanded that I come to grips with the ongoing Jeff Gahan term as undoubtedly the most progressive era in recent New Albany municipal history, and quite likely the most progressive period ever -- in a city that celebrated its 196th birthday just last year.

As proof, Mr. Duggins pointed in effect to the very absence of two-way street conversions, asking me to accept as evidence of City Hall’s innate progressivism an unrealized, barely enunciated intent – the many shadowy, non-transparent, Rosenbargian behind-the-scenes steps the city has taken thus far to commission Speck’s study, and to perhaps someday glacially come around to considering the incremental possibility of timidly sticking its toes into the waters of two-way streets and an accompanying, comprehensive street grid reform plan.

You see? Dyed-in-the-wool progressivism … in camouflage.

I was very confused. In fact, only moments before this presentation of Gahan’s solidly FDR-like progressive record, and still quite dazed at the Orwellian fog suddenly shrouding the proceedings, Mr. Duggins had somewhat imperiously dismissed the notion that those business owners in attendance might wish to talk about the street grid. Mind you, it was not his meeting to chair, and not his agenda to write. In essence, he refused to address the topic publicly. In fairness, he probably wasn’t happy with me for asking questions of substance.

Since he wouldn’t talk about streets while the others were there, I was compelled to wait until they had gone, and only then asked: If City Hall is a progressive entity, and if it recognizes the absolute necessity of street grid reform to help people like those in the room, as well as neighborhoods and the city’s prospects overall – as it constantly claims it does, privately – then in the name of wholly Jeeebus, why not lead the discussion?

Why not make sure that independent local business owners know the proven record of two way streets in promoting downtown business districts?

Why not make sure that neighborhood residents know the proven record of walkability enhancement in improving quality of life and lifting their property values?

Why not ensure support for the reform by getting out in front of the issue, driving it, and doing precisely what advocates are supposed to do?

Fairly paraphrased, here is the reply.

While impeccably progressive, City Hall could not possibly appear to be advocating progressive measures, not ever, because to do so would be to enable the administration’s powerful and dangerous naysaying enemies, who in spite of Jeff Gahan’s 64% vote tally in 2011 – the most lopsided majority in decades – somehow retain their uncanny ability to disrupt the mayor’s well-ordered universe at the merest hint of progressive leanings, because the “Old Guard” would be incited to … to …

To do what, exactly?

Well, to name the most prominent living example, any public appearance of progressivism on the part of City Hall would incite “Old Guard” stalwarts like Republican county commissioner Mark Seabrook -- of course the mayor dramatically and repeatedly spit in his eye during the course of the city-county parks department split, but that was different -- to rear back and belittle the helpless mayor by bellowing, “Ha Ha – you’re just appeasing those nasty progressives with two-way streets! Whatcha gonna do next, have some kind of FAIRNESS ordinance?" 

(Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but no. I’m paraphrasing, but honoring the tone. How could I make this up?)

Hence, the institutionalized New Albany City Hall Department of the Way on Down, Down Low, shielding the progressivism that dare not speak its name, a malady that only Speck’s study can dissipate, because then, and only then, can an administration with a 2/3 electoral mandate, but which remains terrified of Seabrook’s schoolyard taunts, finally point to the egg-head consultant’s findings and deploy them as the political cover it cannot function without. Note that I’d freely accused them of this very weakness on numerous occasions – and now the city’s economic development director wasn’t even trying to deny it.

Being the stubborn sort, I persisted: And yet, really, why couldn’t City Hall engage small business owners to explain the virtues of a walkable street grid?

If we did that and even one small business failed, they’d blame us.

Of course, right now, as it stands, the city’s interminable, fear-driven delay of street grid reform is quite effectively achieving the very same result, by leaving in place a one-way arterial street grid that nullifies every penny-ante ribbon cutting and “stay open late” promotion tossed into the air by increasingly desperate indie shop owners in the absence of a downtown economic development plan, because while street grid reform could be so very helpful, and constitute an economic development plan in itself, it would fatally embarrass a Democratic mayor to be seen openly advocating it.

It's exactly as if Gahan were to say it's okay to be gay, just as long as you don't kiss in public.

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It’s simple.

I’m proud to be identified as a progressive, and what's more, I'm capable of presenting my reasons and arguing my points. But I’m far more ashamed of myself for supporting Gahan in 2011 than he is embarrassed at the ignominy of the term “progressive.” All I can do is learn from my mistakes. He doesn't believe he's made any. There's a difference.

One more thing.

Late in the chat, Mr. Duggins suggested I stop lashing the discredited, careerist city me-development wrecker John Rosenbarger, saying that at best, he was no more than a figurehead for the Main Street plan, and cannot be blamed for constantly acting through the years in such a way as to maintain his employment, even if it meant a steady stream of blatant lies sufficient to make Pinocchio blush.

I shrugged, but Mr. Duggins continued, assuring me that he’d never be one of those careerists like Rosenbarger; after all, he certainly isn’t making very much money working for the city of New Albany, and while personally loyal to the sitting mayor, he’d someday get out when the getting was good.

Teeth clenched, I smiled.

As one who has invested his entire life savings in a downtown business, and arises each day wondering when or if there'll be a return, there’s nothing like having the city's economic development director -- you know, the one without an economic development plan -- tell you that hes footloose and fancy free, and able to leave any time he wishes.

I won’t even waste a stray “go to hell” or "fuck off" on cluelessness of that astounding magnitude.

It's quite enough, thank you. If you refuse to take ownership, you’re not getting credit. Blame is another matter. Local Democrats in general, and the current administration in particular, always have dismissed progressive ideas because they feared no consequences. As such, we’re obliged to try to prove them wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines, because the insurgency begins right ... now.

NAHA hooks up with DNA for Voucher Walk 2019, and so we revisit the hypocritical aftermath of Gahan's public housing hostile takeover.

No joke; the New Albany Housing Authority is a member of Develop New Albany. I'm told that DNA's "leader level" is $1,000 annually. We know it's not coming from executive desiccator David Duggin's fattened pay packet.

Speaking of disruption ...

Demolition Man: Either Gahan lied about the NAHA "memorandum of understanding" from 2017, or he lied to Mark Elrod Tower residents in 2019. Which is it?

In which Deaf Gahan asks: “Okay, what’s the ISSUE with Riverview? Do you KNOW people who live over there? I mean, WHY are we talking about Riverview?”

In which Deaf Gahan encourages public housing residents to be "thrilled" about the indoor grass at the sportsplex he built with their money.

In which Deaf Gahan regales public housing residents with ribald tales of the "superstar" Warren Nash.

Readers, as you contemplate the marriage of NAHA and DNA amid bouquets of RSVP and WTF, think about pouring yourself a nice adult beverage and revisiting these thoughts from June 15, 2017.

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ON THE AVENUES: Hi there, NAHA wastrels. My name is Peter Principle, and these are my friends Deaf and Dugout.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Not since the unlikely elevation of a dissolute New York City property mogul to the highest office in the land has such an abysmally unqualified individual been handed the keys to the future of so many lives, but we reside in the Principality of New Gahania, and David Duggins now “directs” the New Albany Housing Authority.

Perhaps only the likes of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka or Gabriel Garcia Marquez could explain our new surreal reality by means of creative fiction, but to paraphrase the mayor, “Nobody reads books.”

Duggins was awarded his dandy high-paying sinecure by a board of obsequious toady minions, as carefully packed by Mayor Jeff Gahan with his best available bobble-headed sycophants eager to abandon their integrity to bask in the glow of their puppetmaster’s gleaming pate, leaving no doubt about the ownership of whatever master plan for demolition is being implemented.

Never forget that the dismantling of public housing in New Albany is to be Deaf Gahan’s crowning achievement, unless Duggins botches the job and is sent back to the bullpen at the Class AA River Ridge Bootlicking Wannabees, absorbing the blame for disappointing whole generations of white suburban males who feel deep in their bones that if only the poor people would go away, this town might really amount to something.

The fact of their preachers encouraging them in this belief is a topic for another time.

Speaking of stopped clocks, the timing of Duggins’ windfall pay rise, as well as the arguably more significant and impending appointment of his replacement as economic dishevelment director and artful router of beak-wetting sustenance at the Redevelopment Commission, simply cannot be separated from impending election cycles in 2018 and 2019.

With Gahan still emitting random gurgling sounds about the State Senate race in 2018 (the vexed commode begs him to decide), there exists neither time nor desire for Gahan to bring in fresh blood from outside.

Meet Bob Caesar, Chris Gardner or Zelda the Wonder Ferret, YOUR new interim redevelopment figurehead, fully capable of treating the high rollers to drinks, mass-producing cookie-cutter tax abatements, and using one of those ballpark t-shirt cannons to ensure proper distribution of cash-stuffed “In Gahan We Trust” v-necks.

By then, Mike Hall and Adam Dickey will have produced fresh and scintillating reams of adulatory press clippings for the mayor’s ketchup-topped binge credulity, and there’ll be an election campaign or two.

Exactly where Gahan’s megalomania is taking us remains murky, but it’s best to harbor no illusions about his ambition or any of these minutely orchestrated preludes.

He’s doing what’s best for Big Daddy G, just like he always does.

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Getting back to our local production of “HUD Times with Ben Carson and Diamond Dave,” here’s a comment left at NAC by Susan Ryan, a longtime community (and local Democratic Party) activist.

Duggins is getting a nearly 40% raise, not 30% which means that he is basically doubling his salary. My favorite part, however, is how a brand new housing board (most of them only have been in place a couple of months) can continue to talk about the firing of Bob Lane as necessary because he didn't share their vision.

Huh? How does any board that has no experience, and no history of working together develop a vision in just a couple of meetings? Hogwash!

Next thing to look for: Duggins will let maintenance slide and push the units into a state of total disrepair by neglect. Then they will have to be torn down. Some residents also expect that their now quiet and safe environment will suddenly be filled with problem tenants so that crime will increase, making the housing developments a broader negative public concern.

And beyond Duggins’ lack of experience for the NAHA position, we now have a new executive for the Homeless Coalition. Her background is working for the Chamber of Commerce. We only want to get those homeless and poor out of our city. Simply appalling.

Ouch. There's so much hard truth in Ryan's words that local Democrats probably will obey their overlord by not bothering to read them. After all, there's always television.

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Meanwhile, the headline just writes itself.

One Southern Indiana ecstatic as Homeless Coalition selects former Indiana Chamber of Commerce staffer to concur with Wendy Dant Chesser’s plans for a regional oligarchy free of the unsightly impoverished.

True, I hadn’t been paying all that much attention to goings-on at the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana, and I missed this passage in a June 5 newspaper article written by Danielle Grady, explaining the departure of HCSI director Dawn Klemm.

Leslea Townsend Cronin, chair of the homeless coalition’s board, said that she could not comment on whether or not the former director, Dawn Klemm, had resigned from her job or her employment had been terminated …

… Stacy Deck, a Floyd County resident, said in a text that Klemm is now a fellow member of an informal advocacy group that opposes a recently passed memorandum of understanding between the City of New Albany and the New Albany Housing Authority board …

… (former coalition board member Virginia) Peck said that she left because she had originally only planned to work on the board for a year, but that she, too, wanted to do more advocacy work that she didn’t feel comfortable with as someone affiliated with the homeless coalition ...

… Peck said that the board was dependent on the generosity of local government. The city councils of New Albany and Jeffersonville voted to each give $75,000 to the homeless coalition to get it started.

“I didn’t want to take a chance on harming the coalition’s relationship by doing the advocacy work that I felt was really needed in our community,” Peck said.

“Sometimes elected officials don’t like it if you disagree with their policy positions and sometimes they are not particularly willing — not willing to work well with you — if you have used them in the past,” she said.

Sometimes they disagree?

An amazing coincidence, but as Ryan observes, the HCSI has quickly filled its leadership vacancy, presumably with someone more in keeping with the tastes of local elected officials.

Elizabeth Beilman explains.

 ... Keeley Stingel, a Washington County resident, replaces former director Dawn Klemm who left her position this spring. Stingel starts her new role June 19.

In her capacity at the Chamber of Commerce, Stingel's work has covered as many as 45 counties. She also brings experience from the Indiana Lieutenant Governor's Office of Community and Rural Affairs and Hoosier Uplands Economic Development Cooperation. She is a member of the Indiana Youth Institute Board of Directors and the Commission for Higher Education 21st Century Scholars Advisory Council.

Stingel holds a bachelor's degree from Purdue University and a Master's in Public Affairs from Indiana University …

… Leslea Townsend Cronin, president of the homeless coalition board, said it's Stingel's experience in fundraising, community building and advocacy that drew the board to her.

"She's incredibly dynamic. We're very excited to have her," Townsend Cronin said in a phone interview. "She's very knowledgeable about funding systems, funding streams, very passionate about the people she's going to be serving."

But will Stingel be able to soothe Interim Redevelopment Procurator Caesar's fevered brow as he frets about playing second fiddle to the imperial ambitions of Dear Leader, without so much as a single paltry vestal virgin to plop seedless grapes into his mouth while NAHA burns and Duggins gets all the credit for the inferno?

How might Caesar successfully mount a future mayoral bid without being able to say it was CeeSaw, not Duggins, who made New Albany luxurious again?

It might be helpful for Caesar to renew his breathless vows with One Southern Indiana; perhaps after Dant Chesser has contrived a second Regional Cities Initiative boondoggle, she can direct her captive RDA to set aside a farthing or two for public transport – in this instance, bovine rolling stock.

Because: As economic movers and shakers will tell you all too readily as you squirm over your third martini and look desperately for the fire escape to offer some way out of this acronym-laden golfing oligarch’s networking hell, it’s all about economies of scale.

Why use separate trains to transport first the homeless, then public housing residents to their peachy resettlement camps located just across the Harrison County line, when all of them can be crammed into cattle cars for a single gala trip, offering a far more efficient photo-op for Gahan, Caesar, Dan Coffey, or any other local politician in need of a platform plank?

And again this reminder: No local elected officials with the possible exception of Coffey have spoken publicly about Gahan's plans for the NAHA. Silence is acceptance, is it not?

They're all imaging the Orwellian words inscribed on the locomotive, right next to the smiley faced mud flat anchor.

“Hop on Board the Quality of Life Express.”

Rather like Petticoat Junction and all that shit.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Why can't Duggins tell the truth about his NAHA commercial property purchases? Maybe Team Gahan's bedrock corruption has something to do with it.

On Sunday the Green Mouse asked: Why is the New Albany Housing Authority buying commercial property at the dumping grounds downtown on State Street?

This is the aerial view.

Just look at all those parking spaces already owned by the city, roughly 150 of them, situated closer to the steadily dwindling population of Riverview Tower than any conceivable future configuration of the adjoining block fronting on State Street -- even if NAHA owned all of it.

Exactly why does Riverview Tower, populated by the elderly and disabled, and itself an increasingly obvious Gahan target for demolition or luxurious adaptive reuse, need hundreds of parking spaces?

It's a question the ever acquiescent, no-follow-up-questions-ever News and Tribune stenographer Chris Morris might have asked Redevelopment New Albany Housing Authority honcho David Duggins, who instead was allowed to give the sort of spin you'd expect from an LSD user, not a public official.

The property that housed a wrecker service at 615 State St., across from Sav-A-Lot Foods, has been sold to the New Albany Housing Authority.

NAHA recently took control of the property and is having it cleaned up. The land will be used for additional parking for residents and visitors of Riverview Tower after it is cleaned, NAHA Director David Duggins said.

The wrecker service moved to the old Ray's Exhaust location at 701 Vincennes St.

Ah, the odor of male cattle feces. Let's delve into the truth of the matter.

In 2017 Mayor Jeff Gahan abruptly seized the New Albany Housing Authority, effectively bringing NAHA into direct city control. Experienced upper management was purged and NAHA's board was stuffed with brown-nosed lickspittles.

The ultimate goal of Gahan's hostile takeover was and remains to reduce the number of public housing units to as low a number as possible, and having done so, to free up funding that was to have been used to upgrade existing housing units for speculative gambling in campaign-finance-enhancing redevelopment adventures, whether these are aimed at manipulating newly vacant NAHA properties, or for the amassing of properties elsewhere.

Elsewhere as in the two commercial properties now owned by NAHA where Main meets Vincennes: GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Bet you didn't know NAHA owns these properties on two corners of Main and Vincennes. Why?

Duggins can handily explain using NAHA money to purchase properties like these by referring to his mandate to scatter public housing, and Ben Carson surely doesn't care a jot, but a child of six knows it would be absurd to build low-income housing on land far more valuable for other uses.

Please spare us the gobbledygook. These properties are being speculatively "banked" for future purposes using "free" NAHA Monopoly money that the city's over-extended (read: skint) Redevelopment Commission doesn't have.

Duggins wasn't ever sent to NAHA and given a blockbuster pay increase (without commensurate experience) from the mayor's tender concern about real human beings and their needs.

Rather, Duggins was sent to NAHA to do what he already was doing at Redvelopment, and to repurpose public housing's resources for private sector gain, which as we know has the result of diverting a healthy flow of money back into Gahan's campaign finance larder.

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

To paraphrase the great Hunter S. Thompson, people like Gahan and Duggins are so crooked they need assistance each morning to be screwed into their pants.

Once again I thank the News and Tribune for reading NA Confidential, but it would be even more helpful if the newspaper told the true story behind the Gahan administration's Great Wall of Diversion. Unfortunately, Hanson and Duncan need the mayor's steady, curative advertising revenue. So much for their newspaper's declining credibility.

As for the other part: #FireGahan2019

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 18: Clark Dietz, CD PAC top Gahan's "Quality of Distant Corporate Donors" chart.

Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 17: Denton-Floyd feels M(ighty) Fine -- and the resulting Reisz Krispies Treats never tasted better to Mayor Gahan.

Some people climb mountains, but during the coming weeks we'll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks -- and don't forget those air(head) sickness bags.

Mayor Jeff Gahan's campaign donations for 2018, a non-municipal election year, came to $64,250.

That's right: $64,250, or almost exactly two bucks for every man, woman and child in New Albany, with precious little of it actually coming from inside the city proper. Combined with sloppy seconds from 2011-2017, this sum brought Gahan's 2019 cash-on-hand to $128,000 prior to an expected 2019 haul in excess of $100,000.

Meanwhile the median household income in New Albany is $41,456, meaning that half our households earn more and the other half less.

Think about that. If you're angry about the unprecedented power of money in elections, especially as it emanates from big corporations elsewhere, then look no further than our own quaint city for a primer. With each passing year, Gahan's CFA-4 forms read like a who's who of companies scoring lucrative deals to dine at the taxpayers' trough, most often on a "contractual" basis without any semblance of competitive bidding.

None of it is illegal, and we're not suggesting it is. Rather, it's indicative of a patronage system of meticulously organized beak-wetting built to harvest mountains of cash.

And the single greatest exemplar of this trend is Clark Dietz, a virtual arm of city government, from which Gahan quite possibly lifted his "(luxury) quality of life" mantra.

Clark Dietz, Inc.: "We are engineering more than infrastructure. We are engineering quality of life."

Clark Dietz has established a new yardstick for platinum-level Gahan giving in 2017 and 2018 with $7,500 each year -- not counting the fruit baskets.

The CD PAC always gives strong.

Just for amusement, I went back to 2015 for a look at CD PAC's tithe to Gahan's re-election campaign: $5k.

Look ahead a year at the other side of the ledger -- where Clark Dietz's beneficiaries donate into the pool of funds, and there's this from local CD workhorse Wes Christmas.

Exactly $5k; surely a coincidence.

Going back to the 2015 CD Pak report, you'll have noticed that in the address column, the $5,000 donation from Clark Dietz was listed as going to Gahan at Eastridge Drive, the mayor's home.

Oddly, though perhaps not oddly at all, an entirely different $400 donation was made to Jeff Gahan at 210 Lynnwood in Clarksville (the suits misspelled it), which is the address for Public Finance Management LLC, David Duggins' own personal tiller.

Freudian slip? The state's info on Public Finance Management is here, and an RIP is in order.

If I'm reading correctly, it looks as though Duggins dissolved his PFM just four days after cutting a check to Jason Applegate, then (2018) a candidate for commissioner.

But that's another story for another time.

Clark Dietz and CD PAC
A yearly donor since 2011
Total: $34,400

#FireGahan2019

Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.

Next: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 19: Department heads, insurance peddlers, duffers and a few other odds and ends from Gahan's long and winding money trail.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 17: Denton-Floyd feels M(ighty) Fine -- and the resulting Reisz Krispies Treats never tasted better to Mayor Gahan.

Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 16: Last week's minutes from the Board of Public Works and Safety reveal big donors daintily lapping their gravy.

Some people climb mountains, but during the coming weeks we'll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks -- and don't forget those air(head) sickness bags.

Last year the local activist Aaron Fairbanks, who is running for city council in 2019 in Jeffersonville, was doing research on campaign finance in the run-up to the 2018 elections. Denton-Floyd Development came into the rear-view mirror.

September 7, 2017: The News and Tribune reported that Denton-Floyd Development received a $2.5 million state tax credit, matched by the City of New Albany to begin construction on an estimated $15 million "new senior living facility going into the former M. Fine & Sons shirt factory in New Albany."

September 14, 2017: Mayor Jeff Gahan received $3,000 from Denton-Floyd Development more than two years before the next mayoral election.

This is what it looks like when your tax dollars at work are spent buying an election without your consent.

Why, yes -- it does look like that. Here's the line item from 2017, when Gahan pulled in a whopping $56,225 from "friends" just like Denton-Floyd.

About a month later, still in 2017, Denton Floyd graciously treated former redevelopment chieftain David Duggins to a relaxing day with hired "models" and Miller Lite at Keeneland and a Louisville City soccer match.

ON THE AVENUES: Could that be David Duggins paddling across Jeff Gahan's putrid cesspool? On second thought, I'll take the blindfold.

By then, Denton Floyd was engaged in top secret, cloak and dagger negotiations to transform a "neglected" building into a luxury city hall.

Throwing Reisz: The Jeff M. Gahan Luxury Government Center keeps the emphasis on buildings, as opposed to people.

Yesterday, the Green Mouse was told that during an earlier conversation about the Reisz conversion, David Barksdale was asked if there was a point beyond which saving the building would no longer be financially feasible.

How much is too much?

"Whatever it takes," was Barksdale's reply.

The back alleys swarmed with preying mantises in suits.

The redevelopment commission surreptitiously gifted the Reisz’s purchase price of $390,000 to the city’s preferred contractor Denton Floyd -- by sheer coincidence a firm frequently contributing to Gahan’s campaign war chest -- which duly passed the money to the Reisz building’s owner, who as Gahan himself concedes, rendered it dilapidated in the first place.

Now it's 2019, and the Reisz Mahal is set to become a central campaign prop for Gahan as he seeks re-enthronement. Expect the construction work to escalate; just imagine those delightful phone calls to Denton-Floyd if progress again slows as it did in December 2018 and January 2019.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Just $400k in mechanics' liens involving Denton Floyd and the Mansion on Main. Whither the Reisz Mahal?

Here's the breakdown. Among other observers, David Barksdale no doubt approves of this bounty; after all, it's "whatever it takes" to rescue heroic municipal workers chained to their desks, suffering from inhumane working conditions. Those damned Republicans in county government!

(wait ... isn't Barksdale a Republican, too?)

Denton-Floyd
Adam B. Denton DF Development 3,000
DF Development/M Fine Construction 3,000
DF Property Holdings 4,000
Total: $10,000

If we all work together, we can #FireGahan2019

Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.

Next: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 18: Clark Dietz, CD PAC top Gahan's "Quality of Distant Corporate Donors" chart.

FLASHBACK: The ED and the BC chart the arc of the sun as it climbs the New Gahanian sky.

It was March 25, 2016. David Duggins had not yet departed the comfortable confines of HWC Engineering Presents: The New Albany Redevelopment Commission, and David Brewer as remained the city's Building Commissioner. They had a chat about the Anchor King, and the Green Mouse captured it on a hidden microphone.

Here it is.

---

“David, it’s David.”

“Duggins? It’s 4 o’clock in the blessed a.m.”

“Listen, Brewer – just be glad it isn’t the mayor.”

“True that. What’s up?”

“We have a problem. The switch is broken, and Home Depot is closed.”

“What switch? The Random Parks Jobs Generator Switch?”

“No, no. Are you kidding? Parks are the only economic development plan we have. We’re even going to generate a hover board park inside Pillsbury next week. No, I’m talking about the main switch.”

“You mean … ”

“That’s right. The Sunrise Switch.”

“What happened?”

“I dunno; cheap Chinese plastic shit – and to think we paid Jorge Lanz $675.85 for it, THEN he was late with his campaign donation. Anyway, the switch fell apart overnight.”

“What if the mayor wakes up and he can’t flip the Sunrise Switch?”

“Exactly. You know as well as I do. No switch, and the sun won’t come up today.”

“Jesus. It’s like that Hemingway book, ‘The Sun Also Rises.’ ”

“Never heard of it. Reading really sucks. Come to think of it, that’s the only thing Zurschmiede got right the entire campaign – never admit to reading.”

“Oh, I didn’t actually read it. Baylor said something about it on his blog.”

“Really? I’ll let Rogar know. I'm sure she'll have something to say.”

---

“What’s the big deal, anyway? I mean, the switch isn’t actually connected to anything. The sun’s going to come up whether Jeff pushes a button or not.”

“Yeah, but the mayor doesn’t know that. Look, you’re the building commissioner. Can’t you go confiscate a light switch from a derelict property somewhere? We can cut a check; no big deal.”

“That would be stealing from the taxpayers.”

“Well, so is TIF, and I didn’t see you objecting to any of that.”

“Calm down. It’s your fault that Jeff thinks he controls the sunrise.”

“Bullshit. How so?”

“You’re the one who showed him that video about North Korea.”

“Wasn’t me. I have no idea what North Korea is. Now, sweet home Sellersburg’s another story. I know all about that – and One Southern Indiana. They always make me feel dreamy.”

“It definitely was you. The link came from NA Confidential, and you showed Gahan the video and said see, this guy’s got nothing on you. I remember it. You told the mayor that plaques were small potatoes, and from now on it was towering statues only.”

“Whatever. You have to break a few eggs if you want to be deputy mayor.”

“I can’t believe you’re still going on about that. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times. Mayors don’t give their in-laws cushy jobs just to turn around and appoint you as deputy mayor.”

“Hmm. Maybe I can be the son he never had. You know, I’m only here because I believe in Jeff Gahan.”

“Uh huh. Like you’re the first one to drink the Kool-Aid. But look, what about that other sun, the one that won’t rise and light the sky unless our boss thinks he made it so by throwing a switch? We need to think outside the box.”

“But didn’t we prohibit that? I’ll ask Adam Disney first thing.”

---

“David, I’ve got it.”

“What have you got, David?”

“Call those architects – you know, the ones who wanted to build a strip mall on Community Park a few years back.”

“Dude, that was cheeky. The county should have nailed that. You mean the firm of Same, Old & Suspect?”

“Right, them. Didn’t one of them just design your dog park?”

“Right. Around the office, we call him The Human Shield. He talks and talks about diplomas, and everyone forgets the political part.”

“Okay. So get him over to Gahan’s place, stat. Stick him on one of those Spring Street dump trucks. They drive like demons.”

“It’s why they call them Fast Track. Got it. Architect on dump truck. Then what?”

“When the mayor wakes up, the architect is right there – we’ll need a news crew, too. Anyone on payroll?

“WHAS backed us really nice on the Native American nutjob thing.”

“That works. Have them there, waiting. When Gahan reaches over to turn on the sun, the architect grabs his hand and stops him.”

“Go on.”

“He says, Mr. Mayor, the Baylorites have booby-trapped the sun. If you touch that switch, you’ll see your shadow, and we’ll have six more years of bad baseball teams in Cincinnati.”

“That’s good. He’ll buy that. But what about the sun? If the sun doesn’t rise in New Albany, I may have to go where it’s warm.”

“I’m getting there. So, the architect tells Jeff: Look, no more switches. You can do it with your head, kinda like voodoo. All you have to do is repeat after me: ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.’”

“Sniffle.”

“Omigod! Duggins, are you crying?”

“It’s so beautiful. The mayor swallows the bait, and voy-la, no more Sun Switch. We’ll just throw that saved 700 bucks onto the next paving contract. Just one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Which one of us is the Scarecrow?”

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 6: GM Development, yet another economic development consultancy from afar.

Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 5: In 2019, Gahan will pass the half million dollar mark in campaign fundraising since 2011.

Some people knit for fun, but during the coming weeks we'll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks -- and don't forget those air(head) sickness bags.

Here's a slice of boilerplate from a Board of Works meeting in February of 2017, just before David "Bag Man" Duggins was shifted from glad-handing contractors in economic dishevelment to threatening public housing residents with being given a good TASER-ing if they didn't straighten up and bow to Dear Leader properly.

Strictly cookie-cutter; after all, $55,000 for advice from an Indianapolis consultant, as lifted from "excess" funds (!) barely qualifies as an expenditure, right?

GM Development and its honcho Greg Martz may gotten other, similar contracts, having greased the wheels of beak-wetting with a few choice contributions to Jeff Gahan's piggy bank

         GM Dev.         Greg Martz
2018    3,000
2017    3,000
2016                            3,000
2015    1,000
2014       500
2013                            5,000

Total: $15,500

It's not the highest donor total, but a nice chunk of change and enough to launch a negative mailer at the first sign of anxiety.

Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.

Next: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 7: Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz, or the anatomy of $33,225 "Big Daddy Dollars" since 2011.

Today's brutal cringe vid: "I'm David Duggins and I'm here to help."

As ever devoted to surface sheen rather than internal competence, Team Gahan's newest innovation for the New Albany Housing Authority calls for the "executive" director -- appointed to his position by Mayor Gahan following the latter's hostile takeover of NAHA -- to conduct conflagrationside video chats each Monday.

Are you feeling the love? By the way, here's the bottom line for a functionary who came to his new job without qualifications.

Deaf Gahan takes care of his own, doesn't he? Others aren't always so fortunate.

Queue the cattle cars, because Riverview Tower will be the next pawn in City Hall's luxury enhancement crusade.

Satire alert: Trump tells Gahan,
"I can fix your Riverview Tower problem."

It's another underachieving puff piece by Chris Morris, who someday might consider ASKING some of those questions referenced in the banner, although if he did, journalism might break out — and then what?

Can we be honest? The Jeffersonville newspaper as currently constituted displays no interest in what lies beneath the Team Gahan's public machinations.

Morris invariably accepts what he's told by people with whom he's schmoozed for decades. In terms of information, it's a closed loop. The newspaper should be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable; instead, it hoists a series of feel-good stories amid just enough Pavlovian click bait (crime and drugs and roundabouts, oh my!) to juice its advertisers -- which include THE CITY OF NEW ALBANY.

Meanwhile, Jeff Gahan is far more concerned with affixing blame to decapitated predecessors for Riverview's deteriorating condition than manning up to own the crisis sparked by his own ill-considered hostile takeover of public housing.

Gahan's is the least transparent mayor in the city's history, but when it comes to greed, his intent cannot be disguised.

If Riverview Tower is doomed owing to irreparable physical problems, then residents can be scattered for their own good (as Gauleiter Duggins ineptly signaled to the inattentive reporter, below). The building would come down, and then the property sold for for the sort of "luxury" high-rise development that's eternally more conducive to the engorged mayoral ego than any conceivable dose of Viagra.

It's "why he's here," forever fascinated by those bright shiny baubles capable of generating campaign funds, as opposed to actual human beings and their needs, which he simply cannot fathom in a month of Sundays.

By the way, hasn't Duggins long since shed the "interim" prefix?

It's a permanent, stupefyingly overpaid position at this point ... well, at least until January of 2020, when a new mayor graciously will allow Duggins to seek his panacea of a comfy sinecure in the private sector, and the next in a series of dismally failed career moves.

Questions still surround Riverview Tower in New Albany, by Chris Morris

 .. David Duggins, interim director of the New Albany Housing Authority, said Riverview is currently being serviced by a temporary electrical system. He said it would cost $4 million-plus to make a permanent fix and redesign the electrical system. So far NAHA, its insurance company and the Housing and Urban Development Department have spent $600,000 for repairs and other costs associated with the building.

He said decisions will have to be made down the road on the building's future.

"Everything is working and it's safe. We have an electrical contractor walk through the building twice a week," he said. "But it's not a permanent fix. The system dates back to the 1970s. We need to look and made decisions moving forward on what is best for our residents."

Duggins said he plans on meeting with each Riverview resident one-on-one beginning early next year to discuss their situation and see what fits them best. There are 160 units at Riverview but right now around 35 are vacant.

"We want to be more involved and help families make decisions ... let them know the services NAHA provides and other housing options," he said ...

 ... Duggins said there are some residents at Riverview who likely would be better off living in an assisted living facility which they would be eligible for with a Medicaid waiver. He said he has tried to show them what housing choices are available in the community.

"We have kept them informed with everything going on here," he said. "Our main focus has always been the residents, most of whom are elderly, to make sure they are taken care of and to educate them on all the services they have available to them."