All this AND the Farmers Market, too? Gads, it really IS New Albany's turn Saturday to contribute to change.

Yesterday, this:

Wait -- I'm getting a pulse ... The Movement and Say Their Names, coming Saturday to NA.

Then, later in the day, the Hoosier Action poster above. Unfortunately I have little more firm information than what is written on it.

Update: the press release arrived Friday just after lunch: "We encourage our Floyd County members to join us tomorrow from 12 pm-2 pm for Together We Rise: Bridging the Gap Rally in New Albany at 311 Hauss Sq.:

Most of us believe that everyone should be able to live a full and healthy life, no matter what we look like or where we come from. But today, Black Hoosiers are under the dual threat of higher fatality from COVID and from police brutality. Throughout our history, brave Americans have joined together across race and place and taken to the streets risking their lives and their livelihoods. And, throughout our history the powers that be have found ways to divide us by casting doubts or sowing fear about our protests. We are encouraging our members to show up to protest not despite but rather because of COVID. We’re taking every possible precaution even as we understand that coming together means increasing our risks. Because we know that, in this moment, staying apart guarantees unacceptable outcomes for Black people. We are long overdue to rewrite the rules and retake our democracy and it is only by showing that the many are willing to stand up to the money that we have the power in numbers to get the care and respect everyone of us deserves.

Hoosier Action first came to our attention in 2017 when the group became involved with opposing Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch, and helping to organize We Are New Albany as a counterweight to the mayor's avarice-fueled imperialism.

Hoosier Action is a new project focused on building the political power of working families and individuals in the state of Indiana. Hoosier Action emphasizes robust community organizing, where campaigns are built around economic and social issues that impact people and communities across the region. Hoosier Action will work to increase voter participation, lift people out of poverty, and build a new political voice for the residents of Indiana who have been left on the margins.

Click here to view a few relevant posts from the period. Here's one of them.

THIS JUST IN: ‘We Are New Albany,’ a campaign to save the homes of more than 1,700 New Albany residents from planned demolition, will publicly launch on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. at the City-County Building.

I may be inferring a bit much, but it seems I recall reading that Hoosier Action's founder Kate Hess Pace, a native New Albanian, had moved back to town. The organization now has an office at 1015 E. Main, so perhaps I remember correctly.

So, we have not one or two, but three Black Lives Matters (peaceful) protests occurring somewhat within the same window on Saturday.

And one of them involves Hoosier Action, the mere mention of which is guaranteed to induce bunker-down heartburn for Dear Leader.

Taking it a step further, remember always that Louisville's Mayor Greg Fischer is New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan's turgid political idol. Fischer has acquitted himself HORRIBLY throughout the recent Black Lives Matter days. Will his eager apprentice do the same?

With three separate events planned for Saturday, will Gahan remain in the down-low bunker, playing whist with Squire Adam and Warren Naps?

Or, if the getting's good, will he appear with an envelope-armed retinue of HWC Engineering donors and take full credit for the peaceful gatherings?

Well, it's Hoosier Action, and Team Gahan has a very long memory. I predict Gahan will emerge from his lair wearing a mask suitable for the occasion.

ON THE AVENUES: Did you hear the one about Duggins' deep TASER regrets? I laughed until I cried -- and so did the folks in Keokuk.

ON THE AVENUES: Did you hear the one about Duggins' deep TASER regrets? I laughed until I cried -- and so did the folks in Keokuk.


A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I started a joke which started the whole world crying

But I didn't see that the joke was on me, oh no

-- Bee Gees

A sense of humor is a serious business; and it isn't funny, not having one.

-- Martin Amis

---

But seriously, do you want to know something really funny?

Thanks to the News & Tribune and the Associated Press, our humble anchor-laden city astride the mud flats by river’s edge – where unsold Bicentennial books double as paving stones and stray sheep are increasingly scared – has at long last achieved national renown.

In fact, David “Earthbound” Duggins has done the impossible, pushing celebrated basketball wunderkind Romeo Langford completely off the front page, in the process making New Albany into an overnight sensation, and the hottest go-to destination for every addled sociopath in America who gut-laughs and guffaws at the continued humiliation of our community’s most vulnerable populations.

That’s right, dear reader: We’ve been transformed into the place where you want to be, if being here means empowering an "interim" public housing director who remains utterly bereft of meaningful qualifications, one who blithely swaps administrative responsibilities for stand-up comedy, tells idiotic “jokes” about shooting, tasering and other acts of random violence, mumbles an insultingly insincere apology, and still keeps his job.

Evidently it's why the Associated Press is here: from sea to shining sea, up pops the same news story: Philly, Houston, LA, Seattle, Chicago and even US News and World Report, for Adam’s sake.

New Albany Housing Authority interim director David Duggins says he's "deeply sorry" for his comment after last Monday's housing authority board meeting.

The News and Tribune reports Duggins asked an officer to deploy a stun gun on Brandon Brown after Brown used a cellphone to record the meeting, where an activist spoke out against a plan to raze public housing units for a redevelopment project. Brown says the stun gun comment was frightening.

Faster than Duggins can deeply chug an ice-cold Bud Light Lime, something he actually is highly qualified to do, his cancerous ego and underdeveloped funny bone have combined to render our shakily recovering municipality into a laughingstock throughout the entire country.

Just as predictably, mired in his customary default condition of confusion, narcissism and cloistered stubbornness, Mayor Jeff M(ilhous) Gahan has said absolutely nothing to indicate he cares a single jot about this nasty situation, although it would surprise no one if he awarded Duggins yet another laudatory raise in pay.

How much money is enough for Team Gahan, anyway?

Seeing as Gahan’s sole purpose from the outset of his farcical public housing takeover has been to rid the city of what the mayor obviously regards as a parasitic class of unattractive poor people, why would he be bothered by TASERs, pistol-whippings or other acts of official intimidation if these are the tools deployed by his most trusted of monetizing adjutants to get ‘em the hell out?

---

NON-DREAM SEQUENCE

“Davey, you’re doing a heckuva job,” tittered Gahan as his armor-plated golf cart rolled noisily down Erni Avenue, the heart of vanquished, conquered Baghdad – or was it Lane Land?

The giggly mayor gaped at his ubiquitous colonial coordinator Irving Joshua, who was diligently rubber-stamping demolition orders.

“Hey Irving, now that we’ve toppled the impoverished once and for all, can we start building some big-time luxury here? Daddy needs some campaign finance.”

“I don’t know,” replied Joshua. “We may have maxed out all of our TIF-Plus cards until 2046 – wait, where’s Dugout? He was standing here just a second ago, and I warned him against speaking with other humans.”

“Aw, he’s fine. Knucksie’s over there sweet-talking one of them non-citizens. Let me give Coffey a call and get this party started!”

A bearded man in a pith helmet was observed posturing over by the bus stop.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” Duggins jauntily yelled at a cowering resident.

“Ready? Okay, so I walk up to you and say that if you don’t do exactly as I please, I’ll have you shot, TASERed, drawn, quartered, muzzled, kicked out, and if that doesn’t do it, then we’ll get really rough.”

There was a pause. Duggins appeared puzzled.

“Why aren’t you laughing? I mean, that’s some funny shit, right?

Silence.

“All right, how about this one. Do you know they’re paying me six figures to drive a bulldozer though your house?”

---

Here’s another knee-slapper.

As the days have passed since Duggins provided final, definitive and irrefutable evidence of Gahan’s morally bankrupt judgment, all sorts of nervous time-servers whose quivering beaks urgently rely on the mayor’s slop bucket for rivulets of sustenance have taken to earnestly advising Public Housing Resident Zero, offering him heartfelt counsel.

They’re all warning Brandon Brown to be super-duper careful about soulless agitators, conniving communists and malign influences hailing from outside the immediate vicinity of his square footage in Nawbany, accusing these troublemakers of having politics on their minds ... and maybe even reading books.

The horror!

As if the mayor hasn’t gotten out of bed a single time since 2003 without first pondering the political implications of getting dressed – and everyone knows you can’t stuff a fat bribe in a book; it causes an unsightly bulge where the ideas used to be.

The good news thus far is that Brown is coping quite capably, thank you. A few days after Duggins made his characteristically impeccable bid for immediate termination, the aforementioned Joshua, yet another gray-eminence Redevelopment toady brought to the NAHA to help man the wrecking balls, spent roughly ten minutes urging Brown to keep TASERgate safely in-house among “friends” – where it belongs, lest toxic vapors waft in the direction of Hauss Square.

Joshua fairly cooed: Son, just file a complaint with the NAHA board of bootlicking sycophants, where the paperwork will immediately come to none other than Joshua himself for lubed and expedited resolution.

Joshua continued: Better yet, newfound bosom buddy, why not come over to the conference room for a little down-home, closed-door chat with me – and Duggins, and a couple of police officers, and whomever else wants to get to the bottom of this misunderstanding as ol' pals and companions … and no one else knows yet, right?

At this juncture, finally able to wedge a word into the mellifluous spiel, Brown simply noted that he’d already complained to HUD in Indianapolis.

(This revelation produced a remarkable change in Joshua’s demeanor, but yet to be answered is why Joshua enjoys such an immense degree of unelected clout, which he has been wielding at Redevelopment since at least 2005, and surely before, as installed and maintained by successive Democratic mayoral regimes. Does this mean he has the incriminating photos under lock and key?)

Running the gamut from grubby to squalid and shamelessly shabby, Gahan’s operatives are covering every conceivable nuance, aren’t they?

---

In short, just about everyone with something to lose has rushed straight to Brown in an effort to keep him quiet in the wake of Duggins’ latest outbreak of inexcusable and inappropriate behavior involving the powerless – as opposed to respectable high-dollar developers and engorged oligarchs, because hell, you can always reason with the golf-course set over bets, booze, beefsteak and broads.

And by doing so, we also see that Gahan’s minions aren't bothered in the least by "jokes" about injuring townspeople, but rather are spooked by those damned intruders from somewhere else – like Hoosier Action from Bloomington, the News & Tribune from Jeffersonville and NA Confidential, the latter a mere two doors down from the home of 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps, who once campaigned on a platform of social justice, and now believes it can begin only where city limits end.

Then again, xenophobia is in fashion, so how dare these disruptive foreigners come to Giddy Giddy City to disrupt our own Peculiar Civic Institution of Patronizing and Patronage?

The consummate irony of this situation is perfectly obvious, because what most of these radical “outsiders” share is nothing more than a sincere desire to represent New Albany townspeople who are at risk, when the majority of the city’s elected representatives have fled the scene in abject panic.

It has been nauseating. With the notable exception of State Representative Ed Clere (at-large councilman Al Knable is at least being responsive), the default response of local elected officials to the accumulated unpleasantness of Gahan’s housing putsch, whether Democrat, Republican or “independent,” has been drone-like rote agreement or hurried, abject capitulation.

Most commonly: “It’s not my area,” or “it’s nothing to do with me,” and “what can I possibly do?”

Your job, perhaps?

So very sorry to inconvenience our ruling bloc of (mostly) 50-something white males, all of whom attended Bulldog High, but you see, gentlemen, this was bad enough even before Duggins’ latest act of compounded incomprehension, which has irrevocably embarrassed the city of New Albany before a national audience.

I’ve already received a call from an intrigued eastern seaboard writing acquaintance asking for background about the putsch, which I speedily and happily provided.

Verily, Gahanism is rotten to the core, and living, breathing people like those residing in public housing are suffering the brunt of Jeffrey’s hastening implosion.

He's governing for some, not all, and when Dear Leader’s self-aggrandizing sand castle washes away, lots of local Democratic pillars are going to find themselves stranded by the tide – and council Republicans needn't smile, either, seeing as they're not exactly draping themselves in glory.

My suggestion is for the cadres to begin a long overdue rethink about this Gahan-engineered debacle – for instance, ceasing to listen to the groundless New Albany public housing mythology playing in their heads, and starting (for once) to look at reality on the ground.

Isn’t the departure of Duggins a fine place to begin the necessary cleansing?

When will enough be enough, whether it's campaign finance, embedded anchors or threats against life and limb?

As the Associated Press providentially has helped us to see,  Duggins no longer is a liability to the city's deaf, dumb and blind ruling class alone. Now the contagion has spread, and we’re all being thoroughly slimed by his chortling, clueless and remarkably stupid idea of a joke.

The ball's in your court, mayor.

Can you at least make a gurgling sound to let us know if you're still breathing?

---

Recent columns:

January 25: ON THE AVENUES: David Duggins’ violent “jokes” will continue until the New Albany Housing Authority’s morale improves – or Duggins is fired. We advocate the latter.

January 18: ON THE AVENUES: During our State of the Gahanaissance Address for 2018, feel free to resort to hard liquor. I did, and will.

January 11: ON THE AVENUES: Return to sender; decency is such a lonely word ... the sounds of silence reign o'er me.

January 4: ON THE AVENUES: Opposition? It is defined as resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument, and in New Gahania, now's the time for it.

David Duggins' TASER fetish: Hoosier Action has the lowdown, as Mayor Jeff Gahan remains hunkered in the down low bunker.

Hoosier Action has a way you can help, so give the NAHA a call and tell them what you think about TASER "jokes."

Don't forget that it isn't the rank and file at NAHA posing the problem. It's the imported colonial overlords.

While you're at it, here's another handy phone number: 812-948-5333, straight to City Hall -- because Mayor Jeff Gahan can't hide forever. Gahan owns the public housing debacle, and it's time he answered for it.

Tell NAHA Interim Director David Duggins: threats are no joke.

We Are New Albany Deputy Chairperson Brandon Brown has shown courageous leadership in defense of the public housing residents whose homes Duggins and Mayor Gahan are threatening with demolition. When Duggins "jokes" that Brandon should be tased, we see that for what it is: intimidation in retribution for Brandon's leadership.

If you want to let Duggins know you stand with Brandon and will not tolerate such threatening "jokes," the NAHA phone number is 812-948-2319. Tell us in the comments what you said, and how it was received.

Earlier: Team Gahan circles the wagons as David "Knucksie" Duggins' TASER fetish becomes the big story today at the News and Tribune.

THIS JUST IN: ‘We Are New Albany,’ a campaign to save the homes of more than 1,700 New Albany residents from planned demolition, will publicly launch on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. at the City-County Building.

I believe the release speaks for itself. See you on Thursday. 

Feel free to copy the text below and redistribute any way you please.

---

Press Conference: ‘We Are New Albany’ Campaign to Call on Mayor Gahan: “No Demolition Without A Plan to Replace”

New Albany residents to launch campaign to save public housing from demolition

New Albany, IN ­ – ‘We Are New Albany,’ a campaign to save the homes of more than 1,700 New Albany residents from planned demolition, will publicly launch with a press conference at 4PM on Thursday, November 16 at the pillars/steps on the NE corner of the City-County Building in downtown New Albany.

“I was born and raised in New Albany, bouncing around house to house because of unaffordable rents” says ‘We Are New Albany’ campaign Deputy Chair Brandon Brown, a resident of one of the properties slated for demolition. “I will not let the homes in my neighborhood be demolished, forcing children into the insecurity I struggled with at their age. Mayor Gahan, we call on you not to demolish a single unit without a plan to replace it.”

‘We Are New Albany’ is a campaign of Hoosier Action, a community organization building the power of Southern Indiana’s working families. To learn more about the campaign, visit www.hoosieraction.org/ wearenewalbany. Hoosier Action’s official statement of values, “Building The Indiana We Deserve,” can be read online at www.hoosieraction.org/what-we- do/. For more on Hoosier Action, see our press coverage in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere at www.hoosieraction.org/press.

Who: The ‘We Are New Albany’ campaign: public housing residents, faith leaders, New Albany tenants, local business leaders, community allies

Where: By the Pillars/Steps, NE corner of the City-County Building, downtown New Albany. Live stream will be available.

When: Thursday, November 16th, 4PM-4:30PM

Visuals: Residents, faith leaders, and business and community allies in front of City-County Building, “We Are New Albany” banner

(Press Contact: Jesse Myerson, 914-582-3938, outreach@hoosieraction.org)

Concerned about Gahan's public housing putsch? You are invited to a meeting of We Are New Albany this Wednesday at Destinations Booksellers (7:00 p.m.)

Back to the bulldozers, ladies.

Previously: In truth, Gahan's public housing putsch is an assault on working people -- and Floyd County's Democrats OWN it.

I was thinking back to my mayoral campaign in 2015, which is something I seldom do -- water under the bridge, and all that. It seems to me that while the topics of affordable housing and homelessness were broached two years ago, both my opponents generally ducked them.

As significantly, I can't recall the issue of public housing being discussed at all, at least to any length. I was aware that the NAHA had an ongoing plan to leverage tax credits into a 1:1 demolish and rebuild, and I knew that Bob Lane was on top of it. I'm not sure anyone outside the inner sanctum was aware of Jeff Gahan's intentions. It was off the radar, and Gahan preferred to keep it that way.

Gahan's entire 2015 campaign came down to this: "Look at all these bright shiny objects -- want more? I'm your man."

In fact, Gahan's entire political career has been based on non-transparency, and so it's not surprising that while his public housing putsch was being planned during term one, no mention of it was made publicly during the 2015 campaign.

Privately? That's another matter. White New Albanian males of Gahan's generation possess their own array of dog whistles pertaining to the ancestral mythology of public housing as mortal threat to a suburbanite's placidity and a city's progress.

Too bad Gahan didn't have the courage to place his cohort's socio-economic prejudice on the 2015 ballot. He'll have another chance in 2019. I wish I'd have been more pro-active about it.

But as always, I digress.

On Wednesday evening (November 1), 7:00 p.m. at Destinations Booksellers (604 E Spring Street), there'll be a meeting of We Are New Albany, a grassroots movement being organized by Hoosier Action, as summarized by this recent NAC header.

Meet WE ARE NEW ALBANY, and tell Jeff Gahan: No demolition of public housing without a plan to replace!

I'd like to invite my friends and co-conspirators from the 2015 pirate raid to attend this meeting and learn more about this movement.

And don't forget the on-line petition.

More about Hoosier Action, and a reminder: We Are New Albany.

Don't forget: there's an on-line petition to sign.

Meet WE ARE NEW ALBANY, and tell Jeff Gahan: No demolition of public housing without a plan to replace!

In Spring 2017, New Albany, Indiana Mayor Jeff Gahan announced his intention to demolish more than half of the town's public housing stock. Apart from vague promises of housing vouchers, residents have been told almost nothing about the plan or what will become of them. Sign the petition: No demolition without a plan to replace!

Learn more about Hoosier Action in this interview from July.

Organizing in the Heartland: Indiana Group Builds Working-Class Momentum, by Sarah Jaffe (Truthout)

Today we bring you a conversation with Jesse Alexander Myerson, an organizer with Hoosier Action who hosts an Indiana-based podcast called From the Heartland about people who are organizing in the interior of the country and in places where leftists aren't normally thought of as being.

Just a snippet.

Telling these stories is an important part of this kind of organizing, but you can also end up with people thinking that just telling a sad story is going to be enough to move their senator and then wondering why that doesn't work. I would love for you to talk a little bit more about the way this storytelling does and doesn't fit into your organizing strategy.

It is definitely integral. As you imply, it is not sufficient unto itself, but basically, the essence of the organizing we are doing is relational. The idea is that any organizing that takes place absent the building and deepening of relationships between people is going to be basically facile. It is one thing if you can get 12 people in a room to talk to us and it is another thing if you get 400 and that 400 really only comes when people have deepened their relationships with one another.

A lot of this organizing is based on having long one-on-one discussions with people, what their lives are like, what they are interested in, what they are concerned about, what they are afraid of, what they are angry about, what they are hopeful for and growing relationships that way. That is both on the doors and ideally in follow-ups after people get knocked or called. Those stories are important in the actual day-to-day organizing, talking to people and letting them know who you are and finding out who they are. As a kind of public expression, really what we hope to do is to mobilize people with that, but ultimately that mobilization should turn into becoming a dues-paying member, coming to monthly member meetings, joining a team and taking on work. That can be going and knocking on doors, it can be doing data entry, it can be helping to promote issues or taking on a shift at the farmers market or at a county fair, flyering or taking petitions, but ideally it is not a high temperature sort of organizing such as you and I saw at Occupy Wall Street where it is lots of marches, lots of heat, lots of intensity.

Really, that emotional heat is being channeled into really well-functioning systems that people can take on discrete amounts of work that make sense with their working lives and their family lives, but that they can see serving to proliferate the organization.

Liberalism, radicalism, our ineffectual Democrats, Gahan's public housing Kool-Aid and Hoosier Action -- not necessarily in that order.

Loudest damn crickets I can recall.

It's probably not impossible for liberals to morph into radicals, though it surely can't happen until liberals are ready to sacrifice an element of material comfort for the sake of whatever revolution we're talking about. Being a radical means you might win, and you might lose; either way, something changes.

Is Donald Trump Turning Liberals Into Radicals?, by Sarah Leonard (New York Times)

On Nov. 9, 2016, millions of Americans woke up with a crushing sense that something was terribly wrong with their country.

Donald Trump’s election inspired such moral revulsion and political outrage that by that afternoon, parts of the American electorate had taken to calling themselves “the resistance,” evoking the guerrillas who took to the hills and fought the Nazis during World War II. Just a day before, many of these same people were enthusiastically casting their ballots for a centrist Democrat; suddenly they were self-styled revolutionaries.

The day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration saw enormous protests across the country that incorporated a panoply of groups and interests. For those of us on the left, the millions of protesters in pink hats and the dads toting funny signs was a promising sight: Could this be the moment that liberals were converted into radicals?

This point cannot be stressed and repeated often enough: "Inequality’s staggering growth shows no signs of stopping."

Mr. Trump — like right-wing populists across Europe — rode into power on waves of discontent with unaccountable globalization and growing inequality that have increased even under liberal and social-democratic parties. As the French economist Thomas Piketty demonstrated in “Capital in the 21st Century,” inequality’s staggering growth shows no signs of stopping. And it’s pulling democracy apart at the seams; no one but the rich feels represented.

The failure of the Democratic Party to reverse this over the past 40 years can’t be overstated, which is precisely why the resistance cannot just be about getting Democrats elected.

Especially here in New Gahania, where the words "Democrat" and "resistance" are diametrically opposed concepts. Want to know why I chose not to block Kool-Aid?

Because if I did, there'd be no more Floyd County Democratic Party infomercials.

Local Democrats apparently are unaware of staggering inequality, because if they were, more than a handful of the better informed among them would be holding Dear Leader's personality cult to the fire, because for an allegedly Democratic mayor to be waging war against affordable housing and the community's less fortunate isn't tremendously democratic, is it?

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Agoraphobia with a peniaphobic chaser, or the drunkenness of a sociopath's power.

Returning to Leonard's essay, we are referred to a phenomenon of interest in this context.

THE ELECTION HAS GALVANIZED activists of all kinds. After Hillary Clinton’s poor performance with working-class white voters, many on the left have realized that this constituency deserves more of its attention. I spoke recently to Kate Hess Pace, who founded Hoosier Action in her home state of Indiana, a membership organization for working-class Indianans who, with the decline of unions, have few ways of influencing politics. The group has brought members to Washington to lobby their senators on health care, among other actions. Ms. Pace says that most of the people she talks to in Indiana don’t hate Democrats or Republicans, but “outsiders,” people in Washington who have caused their state’s decline.

Some new members of the resistance may have people they can turn to easily for guidance: their kids. The radical movements calling attention to inequality and racism well before Mr. Trump’s election — from Occupy to the movement for black lives to a growing interest in socialism to the Dreamers protests — have been driven by millennials. And these movements are eager to grow.

Indeed, we've already been introduced.

Meet WE ARE NEW ALBANY, and tell Jeff Gahan: No demolition of public housing without a plan to replace!

I’ll keep asking local Democrats about their cognitive dissonance. They’ll keep not answering. The Jeffrey's got the Kool-Aid, all right -- but I think the raging hypocrisy will begin nagging at those Democrats with a conscience. They're there.

They just need to regain control of Gahan's sinking ship.

Meet WE ARE NEW ALBANY, and tell Jeff Gahan: No demolition of public housing without a plan to replace!

Yesterday evening I was honored to attend an organizational meeting of We Are New Albany.

In Spring 2017, New Albany, Indiana Mayor Jeff Gahan announced his intention to demolish more than half of the town's public housing stock. Apart from vague promises of housing vouchers, residents have been told almost nothing about the plan or what will become of them. Sign the petition: No demolition without a plan to replace!

Click through to watch the videos and to submit your contact information and keep informed. We Are New Albany is a project of Hoosier Action.

We believe that people—particularly low-income people —must be at the center of decision making, and their lives and their voices must be a foundational part of our shared democracy.

WHAT WE ARE ABOUT

For too long people have been left out of the political process while losing economic ground. Families are having a hard time making ends meet, and, at the same time, democracy in Indiana has been effectively eroded through gerrymandering and Voter ID. The real concerns of Hoosier families are not being met, while our political representation has been left unaccountable to the people of the state.

This being the current state of affairs, Hoosier Action was formed as a new non-profit organization working to unite people to prevent cuts to vital healthcare and access to benefits, and to promote economic vitality — building strong political awareness and participation. We believe that people—particularly low-income people—must be at the center of decision making, and their lives and voices must be a foundational part of our shared democracy. Hoosier Action emphasizes building broad-based constituencies aligned to increase voter participation, lift people out of poverty, and build a new political voice for people who have often been left on the margins.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Kate Hess Pace has worked for the past seven years as a community organizer for ISAIAH in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota) to empower people who have been left out of public decision making and to create organizations focused on building power for social justice. She led the campaign to win the Homeowners Bill of Rights, securing some of the strongest foreclosure protections in the country, she was an integral part of the successful efforts to defeat voting ID on the ballot in Minnesota, and she worked with Director Richard Cordray of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to put forward some of the first federal rules on predatory lending. Kate is a national trainer, leading training and workshops for community leaders for several years. She is a fourth generation Hoosier and deep believer in the potential of the state and its people.

You'll be hearing much more in the weeks and months to come. Those of you who recall the mayoral campaign in 2015 will recall the old-fashioned paper petitions we used to accumulate signatures and get my name on the ballot. We'll be going through a similar petition process on behalf of We Are New Albany, in order to deliver a simple message: We are New Albany, we're opposed to Gahan's hostile takeover of public housing ... and we vote.

Until then, please view the videos and get your name on the list.