Flashbacks in the Annals of NA Dysfunction: BOW and City Hall ignore speeding on Elm Street.

In this jam-packed update from a long time ago, we see that so very much has changed.

Uh huh.

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October 27, 2013: Freshly paraphrased newspaper highlights, including speeding (by design) on Elm Street and a Dutch Treat for the city.

Over yonder, behind Bill Hanson's graffiti-covered 'Bamabuilt paywall, there's an angry letter to the Jeffersonville-based editor from Grace Transue, who takes the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety quite sternly to task for blithely ignoring persistent complaints about reckless driving and speeding on the city's one-way Elm Street racing corridor between the Interstate 64 ramp and Vincennes Street.

She makes pointed note of her perception of the board's cavalier attitude and dismissive body language, which actually serves to direct us to several fundamental truths in what SHOULD be a two-way discussion:

• A street designed for speeding will (duh) duly produce speeders
• The Board of Works apparently needs weekly exposure to informative weekly recitations highlighting bold new trends in urban modernity, ones mostly dating back to the city's founding
• The Board need not await unnecessary traffic studies to just do something about one-way streets designed for reckless and unsafe driving -- as previous boards have been asked to do for ten years running, or longer
• City Hall continues to gaze numbly upon this and other pressing aspects of the two-way street discussion with an expression resembling that of the proverbial wayward deer in the headlights of an Elm Street driver
• The police department's thoughts on speeding enforcement are, shall we say, cursory

We turn to a more detailed, non-metered source on the police department's recent (and brief) Elm Street observations, as Randy "The Bookseller" Smith explains all at The NewAlbanist:

“Move Along, Nothing to See Here”

In response to a request by a resident of Elm Street (you know who you are), Maj. Keith Whitlow offered up a report to the Board of Public Works and Safety at their regular Tuesday meeting.

As most anyone can tell you, and as everyone who lives on Elm Street can tell you, speeding is a chronic problem there, especially on its one-way stretch from I-64 to Vincennes Street.

In what was reported as a “shift” by Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. of Montgomery, Ala., a police officer observed the traffic flow on Elm Street, presumably to ascertain whether there was, indeed, a problem with speeding.

On a street where the speed limit is generally 30 mph, and is highly trafficked at all hours, Maj. Whitlow says his assigned officer observed … 45 cars. (read the rest of the story)

Thank you, Randy.

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In other news, it has been revealed that amid a budget crisis of their own making, Floyd County's bumbling governmental officials haven't yet appropriated the county's annual share of the Scribner Place YMCA payment. In fact, the city of New Albany has paid both its $137K bill AND picked up the tab for the county's $137K balance due.

Remember back when the county approved the yearly Y expenditure even as the city council's Gang of Four still sought to railroad it? We sure do: County backs Scribner Place, Gang of Four scrambling for new excuses (September 14, 2005).

That's right. We've been doing this for a while, haven't we?

At this point, dwelling any further on our county government's breathtaking bankruptcy -- a nadir not so much about cash as a gaping chasm of intellect and leadership -- would merely constitute a tasteless piling-on, so instead, let's consider the unexamined component, namely that the city's annual $137K payment for the Y comprises pretty much the entire expanse of its economic development plan for downtown, apart for periodic dribs and drabs from what's left of the Urban Enterprise Association since it was Norwooded.

Ah, but I have a dream: The city of New Albany spends a few thousand to repair a sidewalk untouched since the Inman Administration BEFORE an entrepreneur agrees to drop a cool million into rehabbing the building sitting behind it, rather than after.

Pro-active? It's a forgotten concept here by sanity's edge.

Exactly where is the opposition to law enforcement and street reform?

Grace Transue won't let up -- and why should she?

Her complaints to the Board of Works appear to have fallen on inattentive ears, but when the bookseller followed up with a devastating survey of non-enforcement patterns, the squirming became palpable, and qualifications began being issued far more often than actual speeding tickets.

In effect, as the bookseller pithily has observed, those with the misfortune of having their property values and quality of life compromised by lawless arterial streets -- ones that exist primarily to ease the passage of non-New Albanian pass-through commuters with little if any benefit to the city as a whole -- are being asked not to believe what their own eyes glimpse hourly throughout the day, but to trust the city's nervous assertion that there are no problems ... nothing to see here ... move along.

Meanwhile, we're all being asked to accept that the "quality of life" rationale for a megabuck public aquatics center is obvious, self-evident and need not be seriously debated ... but the very same considerations cannot be applied to the regeneration of core neighborhoods, where the mere existence of outmoded arterial streets actively negates the impact of monies spent to stabilize the very same area.

Last week a source in City Hall told the Green Mouse that in spite of oft-expressed public viewpoints like Grace's (and the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association for a full decade running, and 30+ independent businesses signing on to our emblem campaign), the current administration doesn't believe the general public has a firm opinion about two-way streets, and as such, City Hall absolutely must have a study affording political cover prior to simply lifting a finger to the breeze and noting the wind's current direction.

The only possible explanation for such persistent timidity on the part of a team that won election with more than 50% of the vote against three challengers COMBINED is that current opposition to street reform is coming from the ranks of the local Democratic Party's own elders and grandees. It's the only conceivable source of influence that makes sense. After all, the municipal GOP barely exists apart from Ed Clere's personalized brand. Jeff Gahan's electoral mandate is like no other in recent memory, and it's early in the term, long before the next city election. The air is heavy with propitiousness, and yet the deer remains frozen in the headlights of a reckless vehicle barreling down Elm Street.

Why the fear?

Apart from the seemingly bottomless vapidity of Bob Caesar, exactly where is the opposition to law enforcement and street reform?

Anyone?

Bueller?

CHEERS AND JEERS — For Nov. 16-17

READER JEERS

... to a lack of attention.

It has been over a month since I went to the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety about the speeding on East Elm Street, and still there hasn’t been anything done about it by the administration of the New Albany Police Department.

I am wondering if there hasn’t been any attempt to curtail the speeding because someone doesn’t want to have any kind of history of the speeding when the decision has to be made about changing this street to two-way traffic. Whatever, how much longer will the NAPD allow speeding on East Elm Street?

— Grace Transue, New Albany

Weekend Update: Freshly paraphrased newspaper highlights, including speeding (by design) on Elm Street and a Dutch Treat for the city.

Over yonder, behind Bill Hanson's graffiti-covered 'Bamabuilt paywall, there's an angry letter to the Jeffersonville-based editor from Grace Transue, who takes the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety quite sternly to task for blithely ignoring persistent complaints about reckless driving and speeding on the city's one-way Elm Street racing corridor between the Interstate 64 ramp and Vincennes Street.

She makes pointed note of her perception of the board's cavalier attitude and dismissive body language, which actually serves to direct us to several fundamental truths in what SHOULD be a two-way discussion:

• A street designed for speeding will (duh) duly produce speeders
• The Board of Works apparently needs weekly exposure to informative weekly recitations highlighting bold new trends in urban modernity, ones mostly dating back to the city's founding
• The Board need not await unnecessary traffic studies to just do something about one-way streets designed for reckless and unsafe driving -- as previous boards have been asked to do for ten years running, or longer
• City Hall continues to gaze numbly upon this and other pressing aspects of the two-way street discussion with an expression resembling that of the proverbial wayward deer in the headlights of an Elm Street driver
• The police department's thoughts on speeding enforcement are, shall we say, cursory

We turn to a more detailed, non-metered source on the police department's recent (and brief) Elm Street observations, as Randy "The Bookseller" Smith explains all at The NewAlbanist:

“Move Along, Nothing to See Here”

In response to a request by a resident of Elm Street (you know who you are), Maj. Keith Whitlow offered up a report to the Board of Public Works and Safety at their regular Tuesday meeting.

As most anyone can tell you, and as everyone who lives on Elm Street can tell you, speeding is a chronic problem there, especially on its one-way stretch from I-64 to Vincennes Street.

In what was reported as a “shift” by Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. of Montgomery, Ala., a police officer observed the traffic flow on Elm Street, presumably to ascertain whether there was, indeed, a problem with speeding.

On a street where the speed limit is generally 30 mph, and is highly trafficked at all hours, Maj. Whitlow says his assigned officer observed … 45 cars. (read the rest of the story)

Thank you, Randy.

---

In other news, it has been revealed that amid a budget crisis of their own making, Floyd County's bumbling governmental officials haven't yet appropriated the county's annual share of the Scribner Place YMCA payment. In fact, the city of New Albany has paid both its $137K bill AND picked up the tab for the county's $137K balance due.

Remember back when the county approved the yearly Y expenditure even as the city council's Gang of Four still sought to railroad it? We sure do: County backs Scribner Place, Gang of Four scrambling for new excuses (September 14, 2005).

That's right. We've been doing this for a while, haven't we?

At this point, dwelling any further on our county government's breathtaking bankruptcy -- a nadir not so much about cash as a gaping chasm of intellect and leadership -- would merely constitute a tasteless piling-on, so instead, let's consider the unexamined component, namely that the city's annual $137K payment for the Y comprises pretty much the entire expanse of its economic development plan for downtown, apart for periodic dribs and drabs from what's left of the Urban Enterprise Association since it was Norwooded.

Ah, but I have a dream: The city of New Albany spends a few thousand to repair a sidewalk untouched since the Inman Administration BEFORE an entrepreneur agrees to drop a cool million into rehabbing the building sitting behind it, rather than after.

Pro-active? It's a forgotten concept here by sanity's edge.