ASK THE BORED: The wonderful world of Market Street trip hazards.

I'm turning over a new leaf ... on January 1. Meanwhile it's Festivus.

These stakes jut up from the cute gravel on the north side of Market Street between Pearl and State, where in 2019 Team Gahan spent lots more money than the Horseshoe Foundation donated to them in order to beautify according to the suburban design templates of HWC Engineering.

It's an aesthetic atrocity overall, more reminiscent of Mussolini's fascist Italy than anything belonging in a Midwestern city, but that's a topic for future archaeologists to consider.

THIS is a trip hazard.

There are supposed to be wires attached to the tree, but they're wrapped around the trunk; this is just as well, given that the wires are invisible at night and snag humans (little flags would help, right?), but the remaining untended stakes are just as hazardous.

At least on Terry Middleton's side of the street -- lavished with money he voted to approve as a member of the Redevelopment Commission, which in turn has improved the value of his property -- the trip hazards are quite well lit.

On the south side of Market Street, which was lavished with nothing in terms of "improvement" money in spite of the considerable investments in property made by Steve Resch and Todd Coleman, we're lucky to have one of three ancient street lights lit. For months all three were burned out even as a million bucks landed 100 feet away. Now one works (photo last Friday evening).

That's nice, festive -- and dark.

Meanwhile a tree was planted in front of the Pints&union door, this being the place where customers congregate, enter and exit. To my knowledge neither Resch nor any of us were asked if this made any sense; it merely was done, and people began tripping over the wires and stakes, something that seemingly never occurred to the planners.

Soon the wires were loose and the stakes uprooted, then I watched as successive lawn care contractors watered the tree but did nothing about the stakes and wires even when I mentioned it to them.

It's ridiculous, but don't look at me.

I voted for Seabrook.

Essential reading for HWC's Jim Rice: "Four Ways Traffic Engineers Thwart Public Will."

Marohn dissects a situation in Springfield, Massachusetts; it's about traffic in front of a library, and a clueless board of works, and ... you'll just have to read the whole essay.

Please read it.

Four Ways Traffic Engineers Thwart Public Will, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

 ... There are four common methods traffic engineers use assert their power and thwart the will of elected officials and the public those officials represent. They are all unbecoming of a profession that is supposed to be about public service. The August 6 letter from the Springfield Director of Public Works contains all four. I’m going to review those today in the hopes that, if we can’t affect change in Springfield, at least other cities can learn from their (repeated and ongoing) mistakes.

#1: A Focus on Process, Not Outcomes
Time and again I’ve watched engineers talk down to public officials, minimizing their concerns, by pretending there is some long and dignified legacy of deliberation that goes into every action taken by an engineer ... I touch on this first because the arrogance deeply bothers me. This issue keeps coming up because people keep getting hit, getting killed, and those responsible for the dangerous situation—those who could do something about it—seem unwilling to do anything. People have been elected because they said they would find answers. To fall back on process—silly councilors, we’ve already considered this many times—when it’s clearly not working is tone deaf, at best.

#2: A Reliance on Standards, Not Observation
An engineer working for their own priorities, instead of the priorities of the elected officials or the public at large, will quote industry standards as if they are inviolable laws instead of what they really are: guidelines for the typical scenario. This letter includes plenty of that. Here’s one example ... the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is a favorite for engineers to cite, but in a unique situation like that being examined along State Street in Springfield, the rote standards don’t easily apply. That’s why we have professional engineers, not merely technicians. Engineers are supposed to think, to use their professional judgement in places where it is warranted.


#3: Elevating Engineering Values Over Human Values
I’ve written about how engineers assert their own values into design decisions, holding them up as truth when in fact they are a subjective ordering that should be made by elected officials. The decision to prioritize traffic flow over safety, for example. Another is the decision to establish a design speed incompatible with the neighborhood. These decisions are made without presenting them as options to elected officials, even though they are an assertion of values, not truth. This letter is full of the engineer’s values being asserted as truth ... the letter talks about “traffic queues” and “Level of Service” as if they were commandments handed down from a divine authority, not merely a set of values being asserted by the Public Works Department.

#4: Pretending to be Powerless Due to a Higher Authority
The fourth way engineers thwart the will of elected officials and the public is to assert that they are powerless, that ultimate authority resides elsewhere. Layered on this assertion of powerlessness is the implied threat that the real governing authority is not very nice, that they are likely to react poorly if provoked by such silly requests.

This is the kind of thing I did when I was a kid and used to babysit. You know, I would let you stay up late, but your mom said I needed to get you to bed on time and we don’t want her mad at us, do we. It’s juvenile, but as part of the broader conversation, it provides the final knockout blow. There is a false sense of empathy projected while simultaneously deflecting any responsibility from the engineer ... of all people, politicians should understand this to be false. None of these decisions are absolutely technical; they are all somewhat political. This is especially true in a unique situation like State Street, where multiple deaths have occurred. It’s a stretch to suggest that reasonable action here might require state board to provide some type of waiver, but it’s absurd to suggest the city could not make a compelling case.

Cities are not powerless. Great local engineers that want to assert the values of the community (instead of opposing them) can become strong advocates for the community with state appeals boards. 

Our diamond-encrusted mayor giggles with giddy delight while accepting donations from each entity connected with the Lancaster Lofts project.

I seldom attend Board of Zoning Appeals meetings, but received a report from a friend who was there on Tuesday evening.

Up for a zoning variance was Progressive Land Development's "microloft project" at the former site of Tommy Lancaster's and Market Boy (northwest corner of Vincennes and Market).

55 one bedroom units ranging from 292sqf to 644sqf, and a whopping single retail unit that is 1300 sqf. Micro units to rent for planned $525 and the large units $825. Observe that 12x23 is smaller than a pull-behind camper.

Dude: that's almost as tiny as David Duggins' world view ... but I digress.

However this variance for the benefit of Progressive Land Development was not sought by the company itself, whose principal is a documented Gahan re-enthronement campaign donor.

Rather, Progressive's docket was handled by redevelopment director Josh Staten on behalf of Anchor City. Seems the municipality still owns the properties it purchased from the likes of Vinod Gupta and environmentally remediated.

Apparently someone asked Staten to enumerate the city's previous accumulated subsidies and investments in the project, but he replied that he didn't have those numbers. Obviously since the properties have yet to be sold to Progressive, we also don't know the sale price, either.

It also was revealed ...

 ... that HWC is the engineering firm of record and AXIS the architects. Both these firms are from Indianapolis, and yes Virginia, they've been pouring money into Gahan's pockets.

To conclude: The city's redevelopment department has picked a winner, and is running interference; the redevelopment director cannot cite relevant details at a variance hearing; and Gahan campaign donors are involved every step of the way, with ripened plums of the usual no-bid contracts awaiting them.

Nothing about this strikes me as transparent, and if I were to ask Democratic party functionaries to explain, the response is near certain: Yes, it's slimy but it's also standard operating procedure, and no one cares about the details as long as we keep moooooving forward; besides, the Republicans are worse.

This, then, is the extent of our degradation.

#FireGahan2019

Nice building in Providence RI. What's it have to do with Market & Vincennes?

Grassroots redevelopers buy "the worst house on the worst block." How's a self-respecting mayor to wet his beak on THAT?

Progressive Land Development proposes to reinvent the wheel at Lancaster Lofts as Deaf Gahan says wait, is that check in the mail yet?

Lancaster-themed "Micro Lofts" soon will inhabit Duggins' anchor wasteland at the corner of Market and Vincennes.

The four-way stop at Elm & 13th, and why openness and transparency matter.

At last evening's city council meeting, 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps used his speaking time to congratulate himself and the Board of Works for the two recently installed stop signs (complete with helpful flashing red lights) on Elm at 13th Street.

Their addition has created a four-way stop, and it only took the amount of time required for a kindergarten student to take his or her first university class.

It's hard to begrudge Phipps his small victory, given how little he's achieved overall during eight years as a council representative apart from rubber-stamping expenditures.

However, the problem with his victory is the way he first explained it (paraphrased):

I've been working behind the scenes with the powers that be to facilitate this four-way stop, which the neighborhood has been asking for since the inception of NA Confidential. Yay!

Consider that (a) HWC Engineering's voluminous campaign donations to Jeff Gahan have had the effect of establishing the company as a de facto arm of city governance, and (b) every public utterance on the topic of four-way stops by an HWC official during the time of the two-way street reversion and since has been accompanied by a disdainful disclaimer: hardly ever can this be done and when it is, that's because a traffic count was made and the INDOT Pass Through Oracle consulted for clarification and approval.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 1: Mysterious CRS Marketing and the inevitable HWC Engineering tie-in.

This from a street engineering company that openly laughed at Jeff Speck's street grid recommendations (I was there and witnessed it) and operates from a strictly Talmudic old school perspective when it comes to traffic engineering, professing the necessity of keeping cars moving through town as quickly as they can on collector streets with as few impediments as possible -- and other considerations (quality of life for residents, perhaps?) be damned.

I'm not exaggerating. I attended the meetings and took note of what was happening. Having HWC implement Speck was like asking your goldfish to perform ballet.

So, we return to Phipps and his four-way triumph. It's good that we have a four-way stop at Elm and 13th, but the problem with "behind the scenes" is that we have no idea why something that kept being referred to as unlikely, if not outright impossible, suddenly occurred -- apart from an impending primary election and the obvious need to fluff the resumes of candidates.

What happened to change BOW's, Larry Summers' and HWC's minds?

What's the principle involved?

Is the principle involved useful as a precedent?

Will it take another 15 years to apply the precedent elsewhere?

Or is this four-way just an imperial decree and alms from Dear Leader, absent any coherent justification or explanation?

Rather than take to Facebook to announce his win, shouldn't Phipps explain the hows, whys and wherefores to residents?

Situations like this are why one is compelled to dismiss the boilerplate and look behind the curtain. A four-way stop at Elm and 13th was needed, but if the four-way is a one-off with no future applicability, what's the point?

We need to know, and Phipps needs to explain. He'll be hearing many more questions like this during the months to come.

HWC Engineering, municipal cowardice, Jeff Speck and reading the tea leaves through dry heaves.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 1: Mysterious CRS Marketing and the inevitable HWC Engineering tie-in.

Some people watch movies 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.

This one was tough.

Who knew there was an Atlanta, Indiana?

But what is CRS Marketing?

Terry Baker is President of HWC Engineering.

Cheryl Simpson Baker is Terry Baker's wife and also appears to be working for HWC Engineering. George A. Simpson is an attorney in Indianapolis specializing in divorce and family law, and might just be Cheryl Simpson Baker's brother.

That's $3,000 in 2018 from Baker himself, to be racked up alongside other donations to Gahan from HWC officials (HWC owner Ed Jolliffe has contributed $22,500 since 2014), and another $2,000 from an obscure marketing company with Baker family connections, coming to $5,000 more to Gahan from outside New Albany.

21 March update: Here's the exact current view of HWC and affiliated donations.

AB & E Consulting LLC (Jolliffe company 2,500
Terry Baker 3,000
CRS Marketing Inc 2,000
Ed Jolliffe (HWC) 22,500
Total: $30,000

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 2: Of fire stations, amphitheater studies and Axis Architecture and Interiors of Indianapolis.

Public restrooms are another beneficial project neither Jeff Gahan nor Develop New Albany is likely to pursue.

Public bathrooms just aren't luxurious enough for the appearance-over-substance suburbanites calling the shots at NA Anchor Central. They understand so very little about an outside world they've seldom experienced.

The only surprising aspect of their ignorance?

Surely a $100K public restroom study for a project destined to be scrapped would be the perfect stocking stuffer for HWC Engineering.

D.C.’s Downtown Was a Public Bathroom Desert. That Could Soon Change, by Sarah Holder (CityLab)

Homeless activists pushed Washington D.C. to pass expansive public restroom legislation. Now the city is moving to increase toilet access for the public.

 ... Finding a hygienic and accessible restroom on the street is a necessity for many, including homeless residents, seniors, and pregnant women—and a challenge in many U.S. cities, not just D.C. But a nationwide movement is building to create “more spaces for people to do private things,” as Alexandra Goldman, a community organizer in San Francisco, told CityLab. And now—years after D.C.’s bathroom committee conducted their first informal survey of publicly accessible private space—the city has taken the most sweeping action in the nation so far, passing the first Public Restroom bill of its kind.

The legislation builds on years of other urban toilet expansion efforts. Portland, Oregon, pioneered the Portland Loo, a 24/7 stand-alone public restroom design that has since spread to 20 other U.S. locations. San Francisco, where 311 complaints regarding feces on the streets have peaked, installed a fleet of portable public bathrooms called Pit Stops in strategic locations; an alternative to the more controversial self-cleaning Automated Public Toilets (APTs) that it and other cities also use. And while pay toilets are banned in many U.S. cities because of their discriminatory implications, New York State created an exemption to the rule for New York City, where need is high and few free public toilets are installed ...

One festive afternoon at HWC Engineering's holiday open house.

Following the money: HWC Engineering made city streets even safer for speeding cars. Now the company will oversee the Reisz Mahal. Can campaign donations be far behind?

Speaking only for myself, whenever I'm confronted with an anti-climax like this, I reach for my Rice Krispies Treats. HWC's Ed Jolliffe probably does, too.

For many years prior to being awarded so many city contracts that it opened an office within eyesight of the mayor's anchor-bedecked window, HWC annually pumped thousands of dollars into Mayor Jeff Gahan's campaign finance war chest, which at last glance was topping out at around $100,000.

We all know why.

David Duggins was the city's redevelopment director, and his wife worked for HWC. It reeked of nepotism, but who other than this blog bothered to state the facts aloud?

Accordingly, the stenographers strike again with yet another gullible report on the awarding of YET ANOTHER contract to HWC, this time to manage construction of the new luxury city hall.

What will it take for the News & Shambles to inform the public of the many cash-strewn trails running from special interests like HWC to Gahan's Money Machine?

What the newspaper's cloistered management apparently fails to understand is that for a growing number of us on the outside of this enrichment loop, journalistic silence about City Hall's corruption implicates the newspaper itself. Perhaps this is an unjust point of view, but as it stands, it's the only logical conclusion to draw from the newspaper's failure to report facts.

Meanwhile, it appears that municipal corporate attorney and chief sluice greaser Gibson was misquoted.

WAS: "They (HWC) will make sure what we bought is what we will get."

CORRECTED: "They (HWC) will make sure a percentage of what the city bought lands in the mayor's campaign finance account."

HWC to oversee city hall construction in New Albany, Chris Morris (Hanson Capitulation Chronicle)

NEW ALBANY — As work progresses on transforming the old Reisz Furniture building at 148 E. Main St. into the new city hall, the city has hired HWC Engineering to complete ongoing inspections during the construction period.

Shane Gibson, city attorney, told the New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety on Tuesday that HWC will be onsite daily.

"They will make sure what we bought is what we will get," Gibson told the board.

The contract for the duration of the work is not to exceed $154,000.

"Safer Trucking in Changing Cities," or something Nawbany doesn't talk about at all.

SAFER TRUCKING IN CHANGING CITIES from Fields of Vision on Vimeo.

Meanwhile, the same company currently dumping thousands of dollars each year into Mayor Jeff Gahan's re-election fund, and which was given the contract to gut Speck's plan, design last year's two-way reversion and “keep those trucks moving” (as HWC's Jim Rice once observed) now has been given a second contract to explore whether their first contract was a success.

Is this stand-up comedy?
 
What are the chances that HWC will acknowledge failure? After all, wouldn't we be due a refund if so?

Maybe a better way would be having an IMPARTIAL outside firm perform the speed study -- one actually aware of what traffic calming entails. Then again, Gahan has to desire traffic calming, doesn't he?

And the way Gahan's system works at present, doing business with HWC is good for ... business.

Imagine what we could accomplish is we wanted to accomplish something beyond fattening the campaign finance heifer at every turn.

Let's check on the Democratic Party's point of view.

Yep. Business as usual, on ALL fronts.

ASK THE BORED: The mayor, the board, his HWC and their insincere speeding study for Spring Street.

Let's see if we have this straight.

The same firm channeling thousands of dollars into the mayor's re-election fund is hired to conduct an insincere two-month speed study on the same street it redesigned for the explicit purpose of NOT hindering speedy pass-through traffic, having previously repeated on numerous occasions that nothing can be done to reduce speeds, and the newest study to determine what any of them -- city officials or contractors alike -- could learn just by walking by Spring Street for a little while, watching and feeling the mayhem.

This is the way your city rigs things.

It doesn't have to be this way, you know. Follow the money ... and in 2019, FLUSH the clique.

Speed study planned for Spring Street in New Albany, by Chris Morris (Tom May Compendium)

NEW ALBANY — HWC Engineering, under the direction of the city of New Albany, is preparing to conduct a speed study along Spring Street, from Vincennes to State Street.

While officials say speed has decreased on Spring since the street was converted to two-way traffic last year, they want to collect data and see if there are areas that may need more signage or other mechanisms to slow speed.

Sally Hughes, with HWC Engineering, told the New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety Tuesday that radar detection will be placed on poles along Spring "in the next few weeks" to measure traffic for two months. Once data is collected, she will report back to the board of works.

"This will allow us to get a better understanding [of speed] and see if there are additional areas that may need a little more help," Larry Summers, city engineer, said.

There's a nice profile of Deaf Gahan in Anxiety magazine.

Cash-stuffed envelopes won't ever be the same once HWC completes the design for the Jeff M. Gahan Campaign Finance Modernization Act of 2018.

Kinky retro pneumatic tubes are fast, easy, and donors needn't buy flower arrangements.

---

The Psychology of Dictators: Power, Fear, and Anxiety, by Seth Davin Norrholm, Ph.D. and Samuel Hunley, Ph.D. (Anxiety)

 … Not only do dictators commonly show a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity," they also tend to behave with a vindictiveness often observed in narcissistic personality disorder ...

 ... An additional explanation of their behavioral patterns might be rooted in their individual personalities. Colloquially speaking, people often use "personality" as a synonym of how interesting a person appears to be in the eyes of onlookers, both within and from outside their respective sphere of influence. For instance, we might say that a loud comedian has "a lot of personality," whereas we might describe someone we view as boring and quiet as "lacking personality." 

In the psychological literature, though, personality is defined as the "enduring patterns of thinking and behavior that define the person and distinguish him or her from other people." In other words, your personality is what makes you distinct from those around you. In studying personality, psychologists can examine common traits across people and note how these traits may interact to predict behavior. In so doing, researchers can develop a better understanding of why people behave the way they do over the course of many years.

Narcissism Is A Consistent Trait

With regard to dictators, one particular trait that consistently stands out as relevant is narcissism. Narcissistic individuals have a "greatly exaggerated sense of their own importance" and are "preoccupied with their own achievements and abilities." They see themselves as "very special" people, deserving of admiration and, consequently, have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and needs of others.

When narcissism becomes extreme to the point that it:

• interferes with daily life
• appears to be unusual as compared to others within a society, or
• permeates multiple areas of an individual's life …

… that individual may be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, which is defined by a:

• "pervasive pattern of grandiosity"
• "need for admiration" and
• "lack of empathy"

These individuals are "preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success" and "power." They believe they are unique and can only be associated with others of equally high status. Furthermore, they require excessive admiration to remain happy, possess an extreme sense of entitlement, exploit others, and are often envious of others.

Vindictiveness Is Common

Descriptions of narcissistic personality disorder seem reminiscent of what we know of dictators. Not only do dictators commonly show a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity," they also tend to behave with a vindictiveness often observed in narcissistic personality disorder. 

For instance, in now famous psychological experiments, researchers found that highly narcissistic individuals were more likely to try to punish those individuals who negatively evaluated their work, even when the narcissistic person believed they were administering painful electric shocks. 

More recent work shows that, after a negative evaluation, narcissistic people will demonstrate greater aggression even to individuals unrelated to the feedback. Such experiments can help us understand the aggressive behavior of dictators, who are known to lash out against negative evaluations.

Surprisingly, narcissism could also help explain the anxious behavior displayed by dictators. Researchers have identified two forms of narcissism: grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism. Though grandiose narcissism is associated with all that you might expect from a narcissist (e.g., grandiosity and aggression), vulnerable narcissism is associated with an "insecure grandiosity," which seems to produce intense defensiveness and feelings of inadequacy. Such individuals are often described as being "worrying, emotional, defensive, anxious, bitter, tense, and complaining".

These components can be so extreme that narcissistic personality disorder can be misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder, which is associated with high levels of anxiety. The intensity of the emotional experiences produced by narcissism in combination with actual dangers could produce remarkable levels of anxiety, worry, and uncertainty – to the point that one might actually consider moving their entire capital to the middle of a jungle based on the advice of an astrologer ...

Neither City Hall nor HWC Engineering sees a problem with this mishap-plagued intersection. Maybe we should appeal to Floyd County government for help.

Photo by AGB.

Insightful observer AGB photographed the scene on Sunday afternoon after a driver deposited his car in the yard of the home on the southwest corner of Elm and 13th.

Yet another wreck at Elm and 13th. This time the cars hit and one went into the yard and hit the house. But those flashing pedestrian walkway lights that nobody pays attention to were a much better choice than 4 way stops ... there is only a 2-way stop here and you can't see around the cars parked. So there's often wrecks/near wrecks at this intersection.

Ironically, it was precisely this intersection that I mentioned last week to Jim Rice of HWC Engineering, the mayor’s preferred contractor for street design, as worthy of added study owing to sight lines and the completely ineffective solar-powered "high visibility" pedestrian crossings.

Rice quickly brushed me off, asking how I knew for a fact these crosswalks don't work. I replied that as a frequent walker, a couple hundred hours of direct experience is something not to be ignored; he answered by denigrating real-life observation as opposed to the sheer brilliance of that segment of the populace which has chosen to become engineers.

Sorry, Jim. If the choice is believing you or my own two eyes, you can hurriedly beat a retreat back to suburban Indianapolis (by car, of course) while as a walker, I'll continue crossing in the middle of the block -- because this is safer than the prevailing reality following your de-Specked abortion of a two-way street grid plan, which your presumably flawless firm of flunkies conjured between amassing campaign donations to a failed mayor who ordered the car-centric butchery in the first place.

As an aside, the idiocy of these "high irrelevancy" pedestrian crossing lights is so blatantly obvious that even 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps noticed it, and made at least one appeal to the somnolent Bored of Works, maybe two.

To no one's surprise, BOW has been completely unresponsive -- and as fatigued city engineer Larry Summers informed council just a few weeks ago, he's so busy coordinating campaign donations from paving companies that there's no time for the consideration of other matters.

Unfortunately, Phipps has a history of stopping short of useful action that might offend Dear Leader, so here we are. Perhaps it's time for residents of the 3rd district to learn from the instructive experience of Vulcan, West Virginia in the late 1980s. There's a crucial and delightful twist, seeing as the USSR and the GDR no longer exist.

Let's ask the Floyd County commissioners for help with this intersection, seeing as we're getting none from the Anchor Regime.

Feeling forsaken by their own government, after repeated pleas to have a new bridge constructed, the people of this West Virginia community made an unprecedented move which soon garnered international headlines. At the height of the Cold War, residents of Vulcan wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, as well as to communist officials in East Germany, detailing their plight and requesting foreign aid from the nations.

Sensing an opportunity to shame the American government, the Kremlin immediately dispatched journalists to the United States.

Interviewing the residents of Vulcan and broadcasting their troubles to the rest of the world, the government in Moscow did what the residents of Vulcan had been attempting to do for years, bring attention to their transportation nightmare.

By mid-December 1977, newspaper headlines around the country were announcing, “Small Town Seeks Russ Foreign Aid” (Spokane Daily Chronicle).

The Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote, “Soviet officials were amused today by reports that the small town of Vulcan, W.Va. has appealed to the Kremlin for foreign aid… The town, with a population of 200, asked the Soviet government for financial help to build a bridge after the town was turned down by the U.S. and West Virginia governments.”

Embarrassed by the attention their lack of assistance was receiving, state officials wasted no time in committing $1.3 million and built a bridge for the tiny community.

These useless crosswalk gadgets are Team Gahan's most wasteful expenditure ever -- at least BEFORE the prioritization of a luxury city hall.

If we disguise them as trees, perhaps David Barksdale will have the Tree Board commence another orgy of removal.

These useless "enhanced" (or "high visibility" -- but please, select your own code words for "this dog won't hunt") crosswalks are such an obvious and profound failure that even 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps grasps it, but because the error was cemented into place by the ruling clique to which Phipps is beholden, there cannot logically be a solution involving the councilman.

This would mean challenging Big Daddy G, and that's a good way to have the AdamBot kneecap your next campaign.

Maybe DNA can hang member advertising placards on them.

Crosswalk safety: Phipps goes on TeeVee; Summers gulps the Kool Aid. Jeff Speck had the street grid answers, but Jeff Gahan urinated on them. Unwalkable New Albany -- what a thrill!

 ... Focusing on the topic at hand, maybe Phipps is beginning to see that without Jeff Speck's principled approach to comprehensive street grid reform, two-way automotive friction alone cannot magically produce walkability -- and the majority of bicycle-friendly design components never made it past Gahan's ingrained cowardice.

Can you explain, Jeff Gillenwater?

"Greg Phipps and Larry Summers are both very aware that much more could have been done via this significant expenditure to protect against and start reversing auto-centric culture. It’s too bad both of them chose silence as a means of protecting their vaunted personal positions while a solid plan to do just that was being butchered by their boss. As lots of us have mentioned, two-way conversion as implemented is a bare bones step. Now we’ll have to spend years more and lots of additional money working toward eventually getting it right."

Paving news, but before that, a review of pro-Gahan campaign finance "engineered" by HMB and HWC.

Let's talk about paving, but first, who's this guy popping up on Mayor Jeff Gahan's 2017 campaign finance report?

Brad Meyer is the president of HMB Professional Engineers, Inc.

By an amazing coincidence, HMB is the employer of AdamBot, someone we all know and love.

And HMB formerly employed Paul Lincks, who sensibly moved from one set of engineers to another a couple of years back, because ...

 ... it was just in time to get in on the greatest de-Specked sausage of all, HWC Engineering's two-way street grid plan.

As engineers, HWC can spot which side of the bread slice to butter from as far away as China, while wearing blinders, and fully juiced on Kool-Aid. For instance, this Mr. Jolliffe fellow?

You catch on quick.

By the way, city council talked about paving last week. It's so vitally important that Mayor Jeff Gahan didn't attend the meeting, and isn't picking up the phones.

Mike Hall, a spokesperson for Mayor Jeff Gahan, said road paving selection is based on the city's Asset Management Plan that was developed by Clark Dietz Engineers.

Miraculously, no 2017 campaign donations can be traced to Clark Dietz, so give us a little more time.

At last Monday's meeting, the reporter missed some of the very best performance art in recent memory, when city engineer Larry Summers repeatedly and meticulously detailed his crushing workload as hod carrier to the mayor as proof that he couldn't possibly meet for as little as an hour with CM Scott Blair, who along with CM Bob Caesar recently has taken to discussing various new and innovative ways of patching potholes.

But before patches can be connected to potholes, campaign finance must be connected to the mayor!

You could see the exasperation on Summers' face: must I say this aloud for these idiotic council minions to "get it"?

Hence the unintended irony of the editor's subhead: Some council members think more is needed.

Hell yes. It's always the mayor who needs more, isn't it?

See that conveyor belt over there, disappearing into the bowels of the earth?

Feed it and see. It doesn't mean Gahan ever will attend a meeting or climb out from the bunker, where an abacus works overtime, just like Summers, but it does mean Hall might return your calls more quickly.

If your credit's good.

New Albany City Council allocates $1M for paving, by Chris Morris (Tom May Forever)

Some council members think more is needed

NEW ALBANY — Old Man Winter has finally left the area, but not before leaving plenty of potholes behind. Cold temperatures can be hard on road surfaces, and New Albany has its share of crumbling asphalt.

City officials are now finalizing a list of streets and begin the paving season.

But there seems to be more potholes than money, so many of those streets in need of a new surface may have to wait another year.

The New Albany City Council approved $1 million for paving this year at its meeting on May 7. The money will come out of the Economic Development Income Tax fund.

The council advertised $1.5 for paving in case the majority wanted an extra $500,000, but after discussion the council voted unanimously to approve $1 million.

While $1 million seems like a lot of money, it doesn't go a long way when it comes to laying new asphalt. Some New Albany City Council members would like to see more money dedicated to road and sidewalk repairs.