Except Nawbany: "After devoting more than a century of planning and engineering effort to the movement and storage of cars above all other considerations, U.S. cities have suddenly, temporarily shifted priorities."

"While it's so far only a temporary change, the sudden popularity of al fresco streets—a term we are using until a more universally accepted term comes along—presents undeniable evidence that some things in the United States are, for now at least, more important than allowing for the automobile's every possible convenience."

Where's our new redevelopment director in all this? Shouldn't we be talking about al fresco streets in New Albany, too?

Josh Staten came to us well recommended. He knows his urbanism. But here's the thing. Jeff Gahan's campaign finance pay-for-play patronage scheme depends in large measure on contractors who do roads, and paving ... and automobile supremacy.

I'm still hoping Josh can turn that around. But how much can he do when the boss man (a) is clueless, and (b) depends on cars for political succor?

Maybe when Gahan's gone. Maybe then, we can be a real city.

Cities Are Suddenly a Little Less Car-Centric, by James Brasuell (Planetizen)

After devoting more than a century of planning and engineering effort to the movement and storage of cars above all other considerations, U.S. cities have suddenly, temporarily shifted priorities.

... The sudden proliferation of al fresco streets marks a substantial advancement of the cause represented by those scattered few examples of anti-car political success. We shouldn't discount the political achievement, however fleeting, of this unprecedented shift in the balance of political power. The automobile could still end up being the long-term victor in the post-pandemic reality to come. But for now, we are witnessing history.

To create an al fresco street, politicians must legislatively approve the removal of regulations and other obstacles for outdoor operation—of which, there are many (again, the car has been king for over a century). Preceding interventions—complete streets, open streets, shared streets, tactical urbanism, play streets, slow streets, parklets, Park(ing) Day, and Better Block—have tested some of the concepts of a post-car retrofit. Variations on those previous experiments are visible in some of the examples of al fresco streets that have emerged so far.

Team Gahan always doubles down on car-centrism, but "Seattle Tosses Out (the) Rulebook to Protect Pedestrians."

Just think about all those times when the bored of works enumerated the many splendid reasons why they couldn't (wouldn't) help make our streets safe.

Just think about city engineer Larry Summers' passive-aggressive protests -- but traffic flow, but INDOT, but whatever else springs to an obstructionist's mind.

Just think about how different it would be if their first response wasn't "here's why we can't and won't help" but "we'll find a way to help."

Just think if the latter constituted Jeff Gahan's instructions to pliant campaign donors like HWC Engineering, rather than deploying them to defend the car-centric status quo.

Just think if Greg Phipps had the chutzpah to disagree with his overlord to insist on making the situation better, rather than meekly accepting the status quo.

We'll stop there. After all, "just thinking" is precisely what they're not doing.

#FireGahan2019

Seattle Tosses Out Rulebook to Protect Pedestrians, by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog)

Seattle will begin adding safe crosswalks without first assessing if high numbers of pedestrians are going to use them — a direct contradiction of the nation’s road design Bible.

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices states that before communities can add a signalized crosswalk — a crosswalk with a traffic light — there must be at least 93 pedestrians that cross at the location every hour. If pedestrian traffic is insufficient, the manual will also allow a signalized crosswalk only if five pedestrians were struck by drivers (think about that) at that location within a year.

In recent years, some progressive transportation engineers have challenged this rule, noting it subordinates pedestrian safety to the speedy flow of car traffic. (Indeed, as transportation planners sometimes joke, you can’t determine the need for a bridge by measuring how many people are swimming across the river.)

In Seattle, the city’s lead engineer, Dongho Chang, announced that the city was “piloting a new approach” to crossings on its greenway system. The city will add the crosswalk and the signal and then count how many pedestrians cross and see if it reaches the threshold that the MUTCD recommends.

According to Chang, the first experiment — at Ballard Avenue — was successful.

Eventually, some engineers hope, Seattle’s experiment will push other cities to try a new approach and, eventually, encourage action by the national committee responsible for updating the MUTCD. It’s especially important given the sharp increase pedestrian fatalities in recent years.

62,572 annual reasons (and 26 cents) why "a great experience is priceless" is the worst answer for any city employee to give.

Back to one-way.

Shades of "no cost is too great" to rehabilitate the Reisz building. At least David Barksdale's not a mayoral family member, though that's small consolation in terms of squandered opportunity cost.

In New Albany, nepotism is a family tradition.

The Bicentennial Park Summer Re-Elect Jeff Gahan Concert Series begins anew on Friday, August 3. It's the sixth season of these events, followed by a year of rotating "Live @ Five" shows. How much has all this cost the city?

We still have no idea. Here's an article from August 30, 2015.

August 3 is my birthday. let's hope I'm at Pints & Union.

---

Why "a great experience is priceless" is the worst answer for any city employee to give.

What does it cost the city to stage Friday evening concerts at a venue that wasn't built to host them?

Surely somewhere these raw numbers exist: Production Simple does the booking and staging, city workers block the street, prepare the grounds and clean up, police officers act as security, and of course, there are sponsorships, and these defray at least some of the costs, right?

Shouldn't this information be part of the public record?

I asked.

The quick response came not from Shane Gibson, but Chris Gardner: "A great experience is priceless."

Think about that.

Chris Gardner is the city of New Albany's director of flood control. He has a degree in business management (IU Southeast; 2010), used to work at a veneer plant, and is married to the mayor's daughter. These facts are matters of public record, and if subject to review by the most disinterested of space aliens armed with theories of impartiality and a recent dictionary, there'd almost inevitably arise at least some reference to the concept of nepotism.

Perhaps Jeff Gahan's exaggerated fluke of a vote total in 2011 blinded him to the implications of the word "nepotism", or maybe he didn't know what it meant in the first place. I doubt he cares, but even if the director of flood control weren't an otherwise unqualified son-in-law, and even if he were just another unqualified city political patronage employee, can this or any other mayor countenance a taxpayer inquiry being greeted with this?

"A great experience is priceless."

Perhaps Gardner's sequestration down by the river, where few people actually live, has caused Gardner to overlook the plain fact that lots of folks living hereabouts are not enjoying a great experience, because the reality of income inequality is that they cannot afford a frat boy's nonchalance, either in terms of attitude or disposable income. 

What's more, not many of them are in a position to enjoy the bread, circuses and musical events being staged for their benefit. They're working multiple jobs, juggling parental duties and just scraping through. They're struggling with finding and keeping affordable housing. Whether we care to admit it or not, most of us are far closer to poverty than we'll ever be to the lofty ease of the 1%, and we'd be advised to remember how quickly any of us could fall through the patchwork safety net, which Republicans keep trying to dismantle. 

Shouldn't Democrats be more concerned with maintaining a functional, level playing field than pretending to be Walt Disney?

Seriously, how many of us shrug and spend money without looking at the price?

Let's say I come home with a brand new car, run inside the house, get Diana and say, "Look at the nice shiny thing I bought for you."

Is anyone outside of the 1% NOT going to ask me how much it cost, to demand an explanation, to point out that we already owe far more than we make, and can we really afford it?

New Albanians should do the same. Experiences may indeed be priceless, but creditors are notoriously inconvenient when it comes to seeing the transaction in a different light. When Jeff Gahan's minions brag to you about their nice shiny objects, don't forget to ask them how much they cost ... and how do we pay for them ... and how many years will we be paying?

You'd ask these same questions when making your household purchases, wouldn't you?

Some day those objects won't be quite as shiny -- and your grandchildren will still be paying for them. That's neither great nor priceless, is it?

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

I've witnessed a lot of ridiculous things the past 12 years concerning New Albany city government. This is in the running for the top spot.
-- Mark Cassidy (it's 14 years for me, brother)

Pat McLaughlin couldn’t be bothered to contest Dan Coffey’s myriad bullying behaviors meriting censure, so long as Coffey was voting on the mayor’s side.

It meant nothing to McLaughlin when Bob Caesar, and later the city's corporate counsel Shane Gibson, bluntly refused to disclose the finances of the Bicentennial Commission.

Neither was McLaughlin troubled by his Roadhouse drinking buddy David Duggins’ TASER threats against a public housing resident, nor by the proposed demolition of 500 units of affordable housing, a mayoral putsch undertaken in the tawdriest of fashions, as well as being a move completely opposed to McLaughlin's own political party's purported commitment to working class citizens.

Just details to be ignored, right?

Ah, but now, with two local election cycles approaching, and with his DemoDisneyDixiecratic fraternity on the ropes, Paddy Mac seeks to censure Al Knable for an entirely imagined offense, which is to say, for no other discernible reason than petty politics.

However, McLaughlin's resolution conveniently serves as the most compelling proof yet that Jeff Gahan’s and Adam Dickey’s thuggish monetization organization has completely flipped its lid. Our local Democrats have left the rails, and the only alternative to more of the same is to vote against them at every opportunity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

That swamp we keep hearing about? It begins at party chairman Dickey's keyboard, and extends in a steadily escalating stench through the proximity of the party's elected and appointed officials.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

But it doesn't have to be this way, and there are ways to make your voice heard now, before voting begins.

The city council meeting is on Monday night, April 2, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Public comments about agenda items occurs at the beginning of the meeting, and you, too, can have your three minutes to comment on the ludicrousness of McLaughlin's resolution, which at its very root is a vicious personal attack on the council president Knable -- and while you may disagree with Knable on certain matters (as I have), I'm guessing you can see the plain intent in this case.

It's knee-capping, it's character assassination, and it's intimidation. 

It's Gahanism as gangsterism -- but when it's all they have to offer, they'll use it.

Come out, and be heard -- and please, engage your councilman ... nope, no women, and that's another problem to be resolved at the ballot box, isn't it?

At-Large – David Aebersold
1202 Aebersold Drive
(812) 944-9823, daebersold@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Dave Barksdale
614 Terrace Court
(812) 945-1839, dbarksdale@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Al Knable, MD
2241 Green Valley Road
(502) 386-5051, aknable@cityofnewalbany.com

1st District – Dan Coffey
213 Eagle Lane
(502) 797-8347, dcoffey@cityofnewalbany.com

2nd District – Robert Caesar
614 Camp Ave.
(812) 945-8744, rcaesar@cityofnewalbany.com

3rd District – Greg Phipps (Vice President)
1105 E Spring Street
(812) 949-8317, gphipps@cityofnewalbany.com

4th District – Patrick McLaughlin (President)
1739 Florence Ave.
(812) 949-9140, pmclaughlin@cityofnewalbany.com

5th District – Matthew Nash
2510 Larkwood Drive
(502) 718-4986, mnash@cityofnewalbany.com

6th District – Scott Blair
3925 Rainbow Drive
(812) 697-0128, sblair@cityofnewalbany.com

Jeff Gahan's predictably wasted opportunity to civilize Vincennes Street using Jeff Speck's sensible plan.

This text is pasted from Jeff Speck's landmark New Albany streets study, and now serves to remind us that from a glorious potential starting point of ribeye, we're left with a tiny puddle of fatty stew meat.

---

A Limited Mandate

The conclusions from this exercise are clear: downtown New Albany has the potential to become much more crowded with vehicles than it currently is, and the best way to protect against this overcrowding would be to reduce the Supply of downtown lanes to a number that is no greater than the current Demand.

However, as dramatic as this recommendation would sound, it actually has a very limited impact, since so few of New Albany’s streets are more than two lanes wide.

As will be discussed ahead, two-way traffic is superior to one-way traffic for both safety and city vitality, and a conversion of many streets back to two-way traffic will be recommended. This means that only those streets of more than two lanes are candidates for reduction. Within the study area, that condition applies to significant stretches of only the following streets: Vincennes, Market, and Spring.

Within the study area, Vincennes is the easiest street to discuss, because it contains a strange extra northbound lane, creating a 3-lane capacity on a road carrying only slightly more than one lane’s worth of traffic. It also has a massive 5-lane cross-section at its intersection with Main Street, despite its low car counts. Eliminating the extra northbound lane and the unnecessary right-hand turn lane at the Main Street intersection will result in a safer street that is still sized well beyond its current volume would demand.

Vincennes Street

Vincennes Street’s asymmetrical section contains an additional northbound lane that is not justified by traffic demand.

Current Condition
From half a block north of Spring Street to Main Street, Vincennes Street consists principally of a three-lane section, with additional right-hand turn lanes inserted at Spring Street and Main Street, and an additional southbound lane added at Main. This 3-lane section is striped with two lanes northbound and one lane southbound, as if the northbound flow were dominant, but it is not. Hourly traffic counts on Vincennes peak at 490 north of Main, 812 north of Market, and 654 north of Oak.

Analysis
Vincennes Street is clearly oversized for its traffic. At no point do car accounts approach the number that would require a third lane. This condition is supported by the fact that the third lane, rather then being striped for left turns, merely provides northbound redundancy with no southbound counterpart.

Acknowledging that a two-lane section is ample south of the busy Spring Street intersection allows the extra northbound lane to be replaced by a wider parking aisle on that side, holding angled parking instead of parallel. Given that Vincennes is a desired bike route, this parking should be back-in, and sharrows should be placed in the roadway.

As it approaches Main Street, the tapered cross section gains additional width that should be put to used as a center turn lane, with other lanes (including the parking lane) widening slightly in order to use up the extra asphalt.

Recommendation
From Division to Stone, restripe Vincennes to include 8-foot parallel parking on its western curb and 17-foot back-in angle parking (at 60 degrees) on its eastern curb. South of Stone, as the street widens, insert a 12-foot left-hand turn lane, and broaden the parking bays to 10 feet and 18 feet respectively. Insert sharrow markings in roadway near each intersection.

The ceaselessness of miracles: Re-election secured, Jeff Gahan suddenly is made aware of public housing.

Nothing said in this latest instance of govt by press release is mysterious, or hasn't been known before.

Discussions Underway Concerning Public Housing (TASS, via New Albany City Hall)

“We are committed to working with the New Albany Housing Authority Commissioners and Director in order to develop a long-term plan and strategy for public housing – one which invests and preserves some crucial public housing units, reduces density by moving to a more scattered site model as adopted by HUD, and assesses our ability to provide and maintain current levels of quality public housing units,” stated Mayor Gahan.

Translated: Because they're going to force us to do the right thing at some point, we'll pretend it's our idea, and commence the long New Albany tradition of dragging our feet to the finish line.

Just because the sun rose today doesn't mean Gahan hoisted it. We all know scattered site housing is better for real, living public housing residents, but the rubber meets tarmac when these platitudes are detailed -- where and how?

Will Gahan typically claim responsibility for the federal tax credits that have been pursued by the housing authority for years?

Why shouldn't affordable housing be part of the Summit Springs mini-Ceausescu project?

And, whatever happened to two-way streets?

Can we riot yet?

I should add that I'm glad this finally has become a public topic,if only for the five-minute life span of city propaganda spoutings. Last year would have been a fine time to discuss it, seeing there was an election, but Gahan was mum then.

Sadly, it speaks volumes.

(Updated) Looking for the Redevelopment Commission's minutes? Guess where they're NOT?

Go ahead, click that link.

Is anyone surprised?

---

3:30 p.m. update: An City Hall apologist has forwarded a link for NARC Minutes. The last complete set of minutes is from August 25, 2015. As noted recently, the most recent city council minutes are from March, 2015. 

It's April, 2016. How long does it take, Jeff? 

An AWOL Jeff Gahan sends the usual subaltern to provide sound bite for newspaper article about Pillsbury's job fair.

Here's the quote:

Mike Hall, director of operations with the city of New Albany, said as far as what might replace Pillsbury, the General Mills real estate division has been showing the property.

“We're optimistic that it will be filled,” he said.

And here's the full article.

Finding closure, then work: Pillsbury holds job fair in New Albany to help displaced employees; Plant will cease operations in August, by Aprile Rickert (River Ridge Sentinal)

Leadership -- what a concept!

October 21, 2015:

Precedent suggests Duggins should have offered Sonoco roughly $1.33 million to close AFTER the election.

Arts and Cultural District: Team Gahan lapped again by Jeffersonville.

Sadly, among the artists set to populate Jeffersonville's cultural district is Michael Wimmer, formerly doing good work in New Albany.

Last summer, his departure was explained.

Gahan now open to covert art discussions, but still no public comment on two-way streets.

This was around the same time that Warren Naps was fighting to keep pianos off New Albany's pristine, monster-truck-ridden streets, at least until the piano's backers politely recalled that there is a proper order for art installations in New Gahania: One pitches the idea of campaign donations first, and only then speaks to the actual project itself.

Think of it as the gentle art of the kickback. That's real Nawbany culture, son.

Yep. One headline, multiple uses: Team Gahan, lapped again. 

A CULTURED CORRIDOR: Jeffersonville to create arts and cultural district downtown, by Elizabeth Beilman (Jeffersonville Evening News)

JEFFERSONVILLE — There's not much on Michigan Avenue. The two-and-a-half blocks in downtown Jeffersonville are mostly home to concrete and empty buildings.

" ... Right now, we have people that come off the [Big Four] bridge and they go around Spring Street and they make a loop to the river and they come back, and they don’t go much further," Jeffersonville Public Arts Administrator Dawn Spyker said.

City officials are trying to change that.

The goal is to transform the corridor into an arts and cultural district, a walkable connection between booming Spring Street and the soon-to-be-developed Gateway property at 10th Street.

Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents the New Albany Complete Streets Conference.

Here's what one actually looks like.

We are honored to host featured guest Mayor Greg Ballard of Indianapolis. Elected the 48th Mayor in 2007 and re-elected in 2011, Mayor Ballard has been a long-standing advocate for Complete Streets. Highlights of his term include the advancement of Indianapolis' Cultural Trail and the launch of RebuildIndy, an unprecedented initiative to rebuild deteriorating and long-neglected thoroughfares, residential streets, sidewalks, and bridges throughout Marion County.

Damn -- Ballard's a Republican. Hmm ...

The running total of wasted one-way Gahan days.

Time passes so very quickly ...

Why is City Hall politicizing today's municipal holiday festival with a premature "oath of office" rite?

What the Green Mouse wants to know: Who will take the Mayor's oath of office, Jeff Gahan or Mike Hall? (thanks MC)

(more on today's Jingle Walk, Holiday Fest and umbrellas here)

Is it because "Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents Christmas," too?

Has there ever been a "swearing in" ceremony held a full month before newly elected officials take office on January 1?

Whose idea is this, anyway?

I've asked the questions, but they're not being answered. In times like these, we yearn for a Fourth Estate, a Fifth Estate, or maybe an estate-bottled Cabernet Sauvignon.

ON THE AVENUES: The mayor’s race was about suburban-think versus urban-think. The wrong-think won.

ON THE AVENUES: The mayor’s race was about suburban-think versus urban-think. The wrong-think won.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

On election night, a friend in the beer biz messaged me.

John: Rooting for you from Chicago. Good luck.

Roger: Thanks, I'll need it. Democrats already have the cemeteries locked tight.

(John’s as hardcore a Chicagoan as it gets. He’s been in selling beer since forever, and knows where all those bodies are buried, too. We proceeded to have a chat via the marvel of electronics devices)

J: What’s the early returns?

R: Short version: I lost.

J: That sucks. Sorry Brutha. Don't give up the good fight.

R: Don't worry. I might have to go underground for a while, but being an underdog never gets tiring.

J: You've been underground since I've known you, lol.

R: Underground has levels ... like a parking garage.

J: The deeper it goes, the uglier it gets.

R: Just as Dante informs us.

J: Dante Bichette?

(That’s gut laugh hilarious; either you get it, or not. John bleeds baseball, hence the punch line)

J: You got big balls to try it. Lesser men prevail, I find as I get older. The Peter Principle speaks louder today than ever before.

R: Thanks, man. All one can do is get up, dust off and resume throwing punches.

J: Now go get fucked up.

(In short, these were words I needed to hear)

---

For eight months, I concede to having juggled conflicting emotions. Every time I was asked why I wanted to be mayor, it was necessary to suppress my inner Groucho Marx. After all, is anyone gullible enough to trust a person who really, really WANTS to be mayor of this or any other city?

It’s self-evident: There must be something terribly wrong with anyone who would seek the office, although the monetization’s undoubtedly savory, as the incumbent has proven.

Seeing as raw ambition’s never been my default setting, I eventually fell back on a long-term strategy for life in general terms: I work my side of the street, and you work yours. Do what you can with what you have, and never forget to have a life along the way.

I’d have liked to win, and failing that, it would have been nice to get more votes, but what I really, really wanted to achieve in this campaign for mayor was to locate, gather and articulate platform planks for a third way of local governance, in a future tense, and in the hope that they might still come in handy, if not for me, then for someone else.

I believe we succeeded in doing just that, and this achievement soothes the final result. Given local political tradition, the process of introducing subject matter ranging beyond the aptitude of one’s high school graduating class always was going to be tantamount to swimming against the tsunami.

We were a handful of insurgents without substantive financing, and yet almost 500 of you took notice, thought about it, and agreed with us. Thanks again. Next time we'll do better. Perhaps it’s little consolation at the moment, but I firmly believe we’ll be proven right in the end.

Over the short term, a whopping 53 percent of the 20-odd percent of registered voters in New Albany bothering to cast ballots chose surface glitz over substance and reality. Walt Disney’s hold is pervasive, but pyramid schemes never last.

We can hope only that when the hollow shell of Gahanism collapses into the ash heap of intellectual and fiscal history, the city still will have the opportunity to correct his many and manifest failures.

---

The year 2015 has been as intense a personal education curve as I’ve experienced in a while, and whatever comes next, I wouldn’t trade the insights gained for anything. Chief among them is a veritable epiphany as to the reasons why we keep fighting the same civic battles, over and over. It’s also a unifying theme to 11 years of analysis at NA Confidential, culminating in the mayoral bid.

It explains almost every misdirected act of the Gahan term, from Main Street beautification (nice flowers absent engineering benefits for the whole of the street grid) to feel-good parks lust (we need high tech rec centers for team sports, not places to ride bikes). It also says quite a lot about the thought processes of all the rest of the mayoral teams preceding the current one, probably dating back to the 1970s.

It’s all about suburban-think versus urban-think. The wrong-think won. Then again, it always has. 

Without going too deeply into the historical patterns of suburbanization, we all understand that especially after World War II, a far-flung development pattern exploded across the American landscape. The seemingly limitless possibilities of inexpensive automobile ownership were almost evangelical in nature. The suburbs would render urban living obsolete apart from those too lazy or poor to pursue alternatives, and so laden with hidden costs, we expanded outward in all available directions.

Today, many of us see sprawl differently, particularly in a context of urban infrastructure cost efficiency. At the time, when it was happening all around them, urban power elites in places like New Albany first reacted by playing the role of the deer in your headlights. Then, after decades of flailing and inertia, they finally reacted to the gospel of suburbanism by converting to it, having concluded they were on the wrong side of history.

If you can’t beat it, join it. They were mistaken, but generations of city governments here and elsewhere reacted by applying suburban precepts to what were, and remain today, urban conditions. Political systems evolved accordingly, monetizing decay management.

In short, how often do slumlords live in the same neighborhoods as their properties?

You don't think they make political donations, do you?

In New Albany, urban density was gutted for the sake of suburban traffic patterns and auto-centric imperatives. We warehoused low-income people in housing projects rather than expose the "right" people to the "wrong" ones. We sought to cure downtown retail woes by negating the best conditions for downtown retail, and imposing mall-think.

Again and again, mayor after mayor, council after council, to the present day. Never have more than a few of them grasped what it means to exist as a densely populated urban area in need of little more than thoughtful policies to assisting its function as our founders originally intended.

Now, with a mother lode of alternative strategies available to rectify the imbalance, our local political system remains firmly embedded in suburban envy. It’s more than just a revenue stream for the aggrandizement of politicians (see Coffey, Wizard). It’s a set of mental assumptions that presuppose all planning and decision-making.

It’s what I ran for mayor against. Not against Gahan, but against his political worldview.

I’ve never met Darin Givens, an urbanist from Atlanta, but he does a fine job here of explaining what we campaigned for. New Albany isn't Atlanta, and yet if you substitute one place name for another, there is remarkable symmetry.

City leaders bend over backwards as they prioritize mega developments like stadiums and corporate relocations. That’s when they bring out the big guns and use all the available municipal tools for making something happen — rezoning, tax breaks, grants, partnerships, fees… whatever it takes.

Leaders are likewise capable of prioritizing things like safe streets, blight, disused land near transit stations, geographic segregation of economic classes, the need for comprehensive services for people experiencing homelessness … all of this and more. Those issues should be getting the priority treatment.

Atlantans: don’t be afraid to step up and lead with boldness or to support others who will.

Stand up to the voices that dismiss ideas about good urbanism by claiming “that won’t work here” or “Atlanta isn’t that kind of place.” A great city is never a single kind of place. It has multiple personalities that all serve a diverse and changing population. Innovations in urbanism can have a positive impact on all those people and help the city roll with the changes in a sustainable way.

If a leader tells you that Atlanta is “world class” because it has attractions and offices that appeal to suburbanites, challenge that view. A great city center doesn’t exist to serve suburbs. Instead, it’s a livable place that carefully juggles the needs of residents and visitors together, while prioritizing the former rather than the latter.

Welcome to the next four years. We may be down, but we're not out.

---

Recent columns:

November 5ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance.

October 29: ON THE AVENUES: A year later, the backroom politics of pure spite at Haughey’s Tavern still reek.

October 28: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: How many businesses already have died because of City Hall’s street grid procrastination?

October 26: ON THE AVENUES EXTRA: Gahan says speeding sucks, but street safety can wait until after he is re-elected.

October 22: ON THE AVENUES: My career as a double naught capitalist.

October 19: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Courtesy bicycle to the Hotel Silly (2010, 2013).

October 15: ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

The Vintage Fire Museum moved to Jeffersonville so that Gahan might monetize.

Fire engines aren't everyone's shtick, but it's worth remembering that the impetus for what is now a Vintage Fire Museum as situated in Jeffersonville came almost entirely from New Albanians, from the Conway collection's inception straight through to the museum's brief residency in the Coyle showroom.

As the corporate welfare housing project at the former auto dealership has unfolded behind Jeff Gahan's perennially closed doors, it has become far easier to understand the reasons for the shabby treatment accorded the fire museum's stalwarts by Gahan and his economic dishevelment chief David Duggins.

They had a two-for-one TIF/sewer waiver deal to be completed just in time for the 2015 political calendar, and so the fire museum was given the bum's rush. The museum may or may not have been a good fit at the Coyle site, but what's clear now is that it did not fit into Gahan's governance-by-monetization worldview -- after all, how on earth could a handful of geezers ever kick back campaign finance to the tune of fat cats like Flaherty Collins?

I'm happy to see the Fire Museum's ongoing progress in Jeffersonville, and even more delighted that Rick, Kim and the crew at Donum Dei stepped in to help with an event that I wasn't able to organize. Thanks, guys.

'Chili, Brats & Brew' celebrates Jeff fire museum, by Jenna Esarey (C-J)

FOP: Gahan has apparently made it his goal to make every police officer feel disrespected.

Meanwhile, #sadlackey

Jeff Gahan took office on January 1, 2012. Since that date, can you guess how many times he has met en masse with New Albany's police department?

Zero ... as in not once. Incredible, isn't it?

Readers, click through to The New Albanist to read the complete letter from the Fraternal Order of Police. Take it away, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Gahan’s “Blue” Problem

 ... In order to give broader coverage to their plaint, I’m republishing the text of a newspaper advertisement placed this week by the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 99. And yes, I’m doing so because I believe the safety and well-being of this city depend on Jeff Gahan being retired from public office. Indeed, I am continually amused that so many feign outrage that a blog, a Facebook post, or a Tweet might contain an actual wish that the writer’s preferred candidate be elected and that the incumbent be retired. City employees and appointees and the mayor’s family members seem to think that electoral politics requires silence about the issues and deference to their chosen one.

Precedent suggests Duggins should have offered Sonoco roughly $1.33 million to close AFTER the election.

We interrupt our usual discussions of political chicanery with an economic dishevelment bulletin from David "Boilerplate" Duggins.

Seems it is official: Sonoco will join Pillsbury, Indatus and StemWood as prominent businesses leaving New Albany or ceasing to exist during Duggins' watch.

May we surmise that a completely imaginary relief package, similar to the $7 million pretended to be thrown at Pillsbury's moving vans by Duggins and Mayor Jeff "But Water Park" Gahan, as part of crass political theater believed by absolutely no one in town not named Pat McLaughlin, is being devised for Sonoco as we speak?

Sonoco to close New Albany plant (Courier-Journal)

Sonoco is permanently closing its packaging plant in New Albany, Ind., and laying off all 76 employees in the process....

In a letter to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, a human resources manager said the company has confirmed the decision to close the plant at 705 Pillsbury Lane. The plant is expected to close by the end of August 2016 and employees will all be laid off by Jan. 2, 2016.

More than 400 employees of the adjacent General Mills-Pillsbury plant are facing layoffs, after plans to close it were announced in February. Sonoco was contracted to make the paper and metal cans for dough products and deliver them by conveyor to the Pillsbury plant. Pillsbury is also expected to close by mid-2016.

Baylor for Mayor platform plank: City e-mail and greater transparency.

There are unmistakable echoes of Hillary in the current occupant's attitude toward his e-mail. Following is a platform plank I commissioned from my campaign team.

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As you will know, any and all correspondence (or documents or recordings) sent to or received by the mayor regarding city business would be subject to the open records act and could be requested by any person.

Yet, the mayor has no cityofnewalbany.com email. Does anyone believe the mayor doesn't use email? So why would/does the mayor decline to use one from the city to conduct city business? Is he conducting city business through a personal email account? Of course he is. Can his personal email account be examined by the public? Of course not.

When David Duggins or Mickey Thompson want to communicate with the mayor, do they ALWAYS use the phone or wait to see him in person? No, they don't. When a citizen wants to communicate with the mayor to report a problem or suggest a solution, do they only use the phone or in-person conversation? No, they don't.

So in the interest of transparency, why doesn't the mayor restrict his email communication to an examinable city account? Why, indeed.

Proposed: All email communications to and from the mayor must be through a city account. Any email received via another account, personal or otherwise, must be forwarded to the city account by the mayor and all must be responded to by means of the city account. The mayor should have up to 20 days from receipt to forward the same.

Gahan taking notes as "Landmarks Commission denies petition to grant historic status to Water Company building."

Louisville's money-fluffing greaseball Ed Glasscock is one of the single most unctuous fucks I've ever encountered on the local scene.

Another purely "negative" report on Thursday's Bridges Unauthority meeting.

From yesterday's Landmarks Commission meeting (link below):

Speaking against the petition was local attorney Ed Glasscock, who said the current building “is simply out of place at this site, and to force it to remain in the middle of the Omni Hotel development is indefensible.” Glasscock said such a move would “waste a golden opportunity to substantially advance our city,” adding the hotel would create jobs, “attract upscale tourists to our bourbon capital,” and add a “top-level grocery.”

Glasscock added that “it’s unfortunate that a few citizens feel that they can dictate what Louisville’s downtown should be.”

Quoting a comment at IL: "That was intended as irony, right?"

More to the point:

Responding to the criticism of her petition, (Martina) Kunnecke condemned the Fischer administration — and those preceding it — for abandoning preservation and the needs of downtown residents, and only serving the interests of high-end tourists.

“Unfortunately, we have been held captive by not one, but two administrations that don’t necessarily speak the truth on (historic preservation) matters, or at least their actions bely their words,” said Kunnecke. “Our agenda is to stop placating backroom deals. Our agenda is to really honor our history and our heritage, and help our community recognize that we go beyond bourbon. We have fabulous history in this community, and we keep tearing down every vestige of it.”

Just remember: Jeff Gahan venerates ... adores ... idolizes Greg Fischer. Did you really think Gahan is clever enough to conjure his demolition-first template from thin air?

If so, Jeff has some corporate welfare -laced Reaganomics to sell you.

Landmarks Commission denies petition to grant historic status to Water Company building, paving way for full demolition of Omni Hotel block, by Joe Sonka (Insider Louisville)

By a vote of 6 to 3 on Thursday, the Metro Historic Landmarks and Preservation Districts Commission rejected a petition to designate the 105-year old former headquarters of the Louisville Water Company as a local historic landmark, widely seen as the last potential roadblock to a full demolition of the downtown block where the proposed $289 million Omni Hotel project would stand.

The petition with over 200 signatures was filed at the last minute in September by Martina Kunnecke of the group Neighborhood Planning and Preservation, to the chagrin of officials in Mayor Greg Fischer’s administration, who say they plan to dismantle and store the facade of the Colonial Revival-style building. Preservationists had wanted at least the facade of the building incorporated into the Omni project, but the developers rejected that idea, noting that Omni’s contract with the city required that all structures on the block be cleared.

Commentary worth repeating: Gahan's "balanced budget" claims are bogus.

(By Jeff Gillenwater)

Jeff Gahan says he's balanced the budget but the truth is he's significantly increased the budget, nearly doubling it. He says he's gotten us out of debt because former Mayor England's sewer rate increases - rate increases Gahan argued against - have paid off some sewer bonds but he doesn't mention his own borrowing, which has left us with increased not decreased debt levels.

Worth noting is that much of that debt is going toward paying off multimillion dollar projects that were awarded sans public bidding processes and, at least in some cases, have led to campaign kickbacks.

Now that we've taken on 20 years of debt to pay for them, Gahan says parks are a priority for quality of life but did not mention them at all when running for office. We're also now finding out about his administration taking options on Uptown area real estate and pursuing eminent domain actions on riverfront property but he's again not mentioning any of it in his campaign-- just like he didn't mention spending a million dollars on the golf course to the redevelopment commission or city council before he did it.

If anyone points these facts out too often, they're banished from campaign and party social media spaces. If people value transparency and honesty at all, they can't support this. If they do support it, they've really no right to complain in future about any political deceit. They will have chosen to tie their own blindfolds.

The really telling part is that, as Gahan and Floyd County Democrats block social media access to more and more people, they never actually deny what those people have said.

They can't.

They just don't want people to know about it. The truth makes them look bad so secrecy and lies begets more secrecy and lies. If incumbent and new Democratic council candidates won't speak up against such misleading tactics now, there's no reason to think they will if elected.

It's damning for the whole party.

Walkability = economic boost. Time to get walking, isn' it?

If walkability positively impacts knowledge-based businesses, and we continue to drag our feet in doing what's necessary to make downtown walkable, then city government is hampering economic development, not helping it.

Couple this with an absence of attention to communications capability (read: fiber optic), and you'll see two more reasons why there needs to be a change at the top.

How treating pedestrians better will boost the economy, Matt Wade (Sydney Morning Herald)

Retail is only one reason for making CBDs (central business districts) more pedestrian-friendly. Economic change, especially the growing importance of knowledge-based firms, has made the walkability of business centres all the more important. The exchange of ideas and information is crucial for the productivity of knowledge industries. That's one reason why knowledge-intensive businesses – like finance, insurance, IT and professional services – tend to cluster together in CBDs. Much of the sharing of ideas and knowledge takes place face-to-face. And those face-to-face encounters are very often the result of a walking trip. It might sound old school but walking is vital to our premier business hubs.