RDA in our time, or an early Christmas for One Southern Indiana and Rep. Ed Clere.

Thanks Martina.

Approval of Son of RDA probably was a foregone conclusion.

(1 of 2) It's Son of Regional Development Authority, coming from your Floyd County Council at Tuesday's meeting.

(2 of 2) Floyd County Council set to approve Son of Regional Development Authority after rejecting it two years ago.

Almost no one knew the RDA had returned to Floyd County Council for down and dirty adoption, but one thing is clear. Now that Floyd County's governmental tier has hospital sale money to spend, we're compelled to start paying close attention to them, too.

In 2015, council Republicans led the way in voting against RDA, but there has been turnover since then, and anyway, when all the DemoDixieDisneycrats in the room are falling over themselves to agree with Rep. Ed Clere, Wendy Dant Chesser and the regional oligarchs she represents ... hey, wait.

It's National Bourbon Day, isn't it?

Now there's an idea for coping skills.

But seriously ... had I known sooner, much more hell would have been raised, though to be truthful, it's on me. I missed the approaching RDA boomerang, and as we've gleaned from so many years observing Deaf Gahan's bunker charades, politicians are secretive just like fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly.

I hope not to be fooled twice. Here's a thought from regular reader Kelley Curran:

The only purpose of an RDA is to "get things done" that supposedly can't be done now because of "politics." Translated, because elected officials are charged with representing their constituents, it makes it difficult to do things not in those constituents' best interests, and that frustrates the (big) business community.

Here's a graphic from CounterPunch. The next time you see this graffiti, it'll have been made One Southern Indiana's homepage banner, because irony is something they're not calculated to grasp.

The newspaper covered last evening's meeting here. Lots of hard, cutting edge questions, and ... say, what about that bourbon?

(2 of 2) Floyd County Council set to approve Son of Regional Development Authority after rejecting it two years ago.

For further background on the 2015 origins of this story, go here.

It was August, 2015, and we were living through an era of alphabet soup. That was then ...

For the sparse straight dope, read Chris Morris's description of yesterday's meeting, in which the Floyd County Council voted 5 - 2 to reject One Southern Indiana's entreaties and remain outside the Regional Development Authority (RDA) required to participate in the Regional Cities Initiative lottery. The voting breakdown reflects this issue's strange non-partisan orientation. Four Republicans and a Democrat (Striegel) voted against, with Pickett (D) and Schellenberger (R) voting in favor.

... this is now.

It seems that for quite some time, some local government officials have been conferring with One Southern Indiana, and we're now going to witness a revival of the Regional Cities Initiative, as plotted and stewarded by an appointed Regional Development Authority board, with the ostensible goal being a share of economic development monies disbursed by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (go here for more).

I'm told the votes are there to pass this measure. For proponents of the RCI, the best case scenario would be an RDA accepted by Floyd, Clark, Harrison, Washington and Scott counties.

Here's the ordinance.

Apologies for the quality of reproduction.

I'm only a pro bono blogger with a full plate today, annoyed yet again by non-transparency on the part of local government, but in little position at the moment to elaborate beyond what I've written.

I've heard the arguments in favor, and respect them. I'd respect them even more if they were accompanied by pledges of renewed transparency, and a concurrent goal to involved more citizens in the process. 1Si has a dreadful record in this regard, and it has consistently refused to be accountable for the horrible plan it created in 2015.

Seeing as 1Si is responsive only to its members, my recommendation is simple.

Engage your county council representatives. 

Agree or disagree; say yea or nay. Ask questions. Expect coherent answers. We need to know if this time we'll be allowed to make input to this process. If not, then it's just another one of 1Si's shell games.

Find them here: http://www.floydcounty.in.gov/index.php/floyd-county-government/floyd-county-indiana-county-council

Good luck, and let me know what they tell you.

(1 of 2) It's Son of Regional Development Authority, coming from your Floyd County Council at Tuesday's meeting.

At the Floyd County Council meeting on Tuesday evening, it is expected that the county's fiscal body will reverse course from 2015 and approve participation in a Regional Development Authority (RDA) to be formed for the purpose of devising and implementing a future Regional Cities Initiative.

Read the ordinance here.

I know; acronym sickness is just over the horizon, but bear with me. All of these slick letter combos are a reprise of 2015, when the state minted the notion of staging a quasi-reality show to disburse lottery winnings (actually, the state's share came from a tax amnesty program).

My effort to explain it in 2015 contained the following excerpt from Elizabeth's Beilman's N & T coverage, although interested parties should reread the whole column to benefit from some of my best-ever pitchfork rhetoric.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

August 12, 2015

(Beilman): One Southern Indiana has taken the lead in producing this plan through a new initiative called “Our Southern Indiana.” The plan includes developments across Clark, Floyd, Washington, Scott and Harrison counties as the Southern Indiana region.

Wendy Dant Chesser, 1si president and CEO, presented the five key areas that the projects cover — waterfront development, regional greenway system, workforce development, River Ridge Commerce Center economic engine and regional water resources ...

... In order to be chosen by the IEDC for RCI funds, the five counties’ fiscal bodies that form the region here must approve the formation of a Regional Development Authority, or RDA. Five non-elected or nongovernmental representatives will be chosen and approved by the each county commission.

If chosen, the Southern Indiana RDA would execute the plan that Our Southern Indiana has devised with the input of local officials and residents through various public forums.

Infuriatingly, the state's website doesn't really explain what an RDA is; rather, it rehashes propaganda from those RDAs already in existence. Exceedingly annoying.

At any rate, 1Si's 2015 RDA/RCI effort collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane. Clark County approved, then changed its mind. Floyd County's council voted no.

As preface for tomorrow's new vote, which I'm told will pass easily, reprinted below are two 2015 explanatory pieces.

---

Indiana Regional Cities Initiative: One Southern Indiana's math didn't help its case, did it?

September 6, 2015

Let's reduce this to the most simple component.

One Southern Indiana convenes a meeting of politicians and acolytes, which I attended, and introduces its grand plan (Our Southern Indiana) for how a quasi-lottery windfall of $434-odd million is to be spent within the framework of a "regional" cities initiative.

1Si takes the Goebbelsian gambit a step further by shrouding it with MBA-level, lower-case tagging: "imagine - empower - illuminate," reminding me that buffed and polished PR-speak tends to send me running in search of a bucket.

Forget all the major topics of discussion before and after the triumphal roll-out meeting, including concerns about the powers of the Regional Development Authority, the potential for eminent domain controversies, and whether or not any of this money actually would be real according to commonly accepted definitions of reality -- and whether any of it would benefit ordinary working people.

Just keep your eyes on the dollar-sign propaganda.

1Si's lottery winning disbursement committee produces proposals for regional unity over a projected five county area, because, yet again, the founding shtick of the whole plan is regional cooperation. One would think this might imply a semblance of proportionality, given the goal of universal participation.

Except that it gets predictable, and quickly.

Greenway expansion funding (can't we finish the 1990s model first?) omits Harrison, Scott and Washington Counties entirely from direct investment. Waterfront development excludes the latter two counties, which don't front on the Ohio. Workforce development spreads a few million farthings around, some of which might leach into the outer reaches of the five-county target area. A paltry 200K is proposed to study regional water resources,which arguably is the most important consideration of all in a time of climate change.

This leaves roughly $252 million to  -- that's right, incentivize River Ridge, which already has been enabled by the state as a regional economic development "winner" for two decades, and showered with every imaginable form of abatement, subsidy and happy ending potions known to corporate welfare fetishists hereabouts.

Proportionately dividing Greenway and Waterfront proposals between counties, it leaves us with $300 million out of $434 million earmarked for Clark County alone.

How exactly does one sell this notion to Washington County -- to Floyd County?

To repeat: I understand that the situation is more nuanced than this. What I'm trying to convey to the usual suspects in imaginary One Southern Indiana Land is that given the numbers you provide, there is almost no compelling reason for a politician sitting outside Clark County to vote in favor of ceding authority when so little of the benefit accrues to his or her home turf.

And, again: Had 1Si led with even the slightest recognition that River Ridge's ongoing "empowerment" suggests regional transit options of the sort that big-time state funding could help realize, I might have given the business-as-usual elites the benefit of the doubt.

There are numerous other reasons to be suspicious of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, and Rep. Clere can paint it any way he likes, but until One Southern Indiana accepts a measure of responsibility for its ongoing institutionalized tone deafness, it's all moot.

New Albany state rep: Southern Indiana's regional funding bid derailed by 'misinformation', by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

When Indiana State Rep. Ed Clere co-authored legislation meant to inject major dollars into various regions of Indiana, he expected the largest hurdle to be getting that bill passed and funded.

What he didn't expect was for local Republican-led political bodies to shoot down a plan that was passed by a Republican-dominated legislature with support from a Republican governor.

But that's what happened ...

 ... And though competition for the funding was sure to be stiff, the Clark-Floyd county region was thought to be a strong contender, based on its size and proximity to the Louisville market.

But that's now moot for Southern Indiana, as the region has declined to submit an application, according to Wendy Dant Chesser, president and CEO of One Southern Indiana, the chamber of commerce for Clark and Floyd counties.

---

Finally, how it ended.

---

Merciful closure for 1Si as three (!) Indiana Regional Cities Initiative lottery winners are announced.

December 19, 2015

File under: "For the record."

The regions identified below have as their hubs the cities of Evansville, South Bend and Ft. Wayne, respectively.

There'll be chickens in every pot, and the wine will flow like water, or at least Bud Light Lime. Fatted calves will be rendered onto veal, etc, and so forth.

Meanwhile, there is the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

We've got that going for us.

Pence, IEDC Put Stamp on Regional Cities Selections, by Andy Ober (Inside Indiana Business)

INDIANAPOLIS - Governor Mike Pence and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Board of Directors have approved the Indiana Regional Cities Strategic Review Committee recommendations. As a result, the southwest, north central and northeast regions will receive funding as part of the statewide Regional Cities Initiative.

One Southern Indiana seeks roadside assistance as "Indianapolis Voters Overwhelmingly Pass Nation's First Income Tax for Transit."

Think back to One Southern Indiana's epochal masterwork, the plan to leverage potential Regional Cities Initiative (RCI) monies by diverting the vast bulk of them to River Ridge, already the beneficiary of largess on a colossal and game-changing scale, rather than seeking to answer the most obvious prevailing question:

If all the jobs are to be in River Ridge, and if the aim of the RCI is regional cooperation, then is there a way to get workers back and forth between their region-wide homes and their jobs by public transit?

1Si's plan sank like the proverbial stone, although it surely would have amply wetted beaks among the organization's targeted corporate enrichment classes.

Now read the following, and contemplate Indy's chamber of commerce actually helping in this mass transit taxation initiative.

Imperfect? Of course it is, but it's a convenient way of illustrating yet again that when it comes to greater goods and modern ways of thinking, Wendy Dant Chesser's 1Si isn't just behind the curve.

It has nailed a deer, thrown a rod, blown two tires and currently awaits a tow truck, circa 1986.

Might as well break out the Champale while you're waiting, guys.

Indianapolis Voters Overwhelmingly Pass Nation's First Income Tax for Transit, by Irvin Dawid (Planetizen)

 ... Marion County may soon have the nation's most progressive tax dedicated to public transit, and only bus transit at that. In addition to the faith and business communities that backed the measure, Gov. (now V.P.-elect) Mike Pence deserves credit.
November 13, 2016, 7am PST |

"Proponents of a public transit ballot referendum to increase bus service in Indianapolis declared victory Tuesday night, hailing the income tax hike approved by voters as a long-term solution for the city's transportation woes and a benefit to workers and employers, alike," writes John Tuohy, Indystar transportation reporter.

"With 99 percent of precincts in the county reporting, voters favored the measure 59 percent to 41 percent," reports Susan Orr for The Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ).

The transit question, which was included on all Marion County ballots, asked voters whether they wanted to give the City-County Council the authority to impose an income tax of up to 0.25 percent—25 cents per $100 of income—to help fund the Marion County Transit Plan. For a resident earning $50,000 a year, that 0.25 percent equals an additional $125 in annual income taxes.

The plan calls for $390 million in improvements aimed at strengthening IndyGo’s bus service—extending hours of operation, increasing the number of bus routes that run at 15-minute frequencies, and running every route seven days a week. The transit tax also would fund the operational costs of three rapid-transit lines, which feature buses that run more often and make fewer stops

As Planetizen editor James Brasuell detailed in August 2016, the public transit referendum, Public Question 2 on the November Marion County ballot was backed by the "ministers, priests and pastors in the Indianapolis Congregation Action Network (IndyCAN), who view "public transit [as] a social justice issue for low-income residents," writes Tuohy. But they also had powerful allies in the effort.

"We've spent 10 years working on this. I think its time has come," Mark Fisher, Indy Chamber's vice president of government relations and policy development, told IBJ.

The lucrativeness of (failed) consultancy: "Muncie regional cities effort cost $160K-plus."

The Green Mouse received a text the other day.

Here's a Regional Cities Initiative hangover to contemplate. Muncie hired consultants and paid $160K for nothing. I'll give Wendy Dant-Chesser this; at least she spearheaded it herself. $160K bucks gone and nothing to show for it; sounds like New Albany.

Previously, we tossed a sideways glance (as well as our cookies) at the RCI lottery champs.

Merciful closure for 1Si as three (!) Indiana Regional Cities Initiative lottery winners are announced.

There'll be chickens in every pot, and the wine will flow like water, or at least Bud Light Lime. Fatted calves will be rendered onto veal, etc, and so forth.

Damn -- $160K? You could buy 15% of a Bicentennial Park for that much.

Wait ... we already did.

Muncie regional cities effort cost $160K-plus, by Keith Roysdon (Indy Star)

 ... The Star Press has learned that the East Central regional effort cost $161,100. That figure was released Wednesday by local economic development officials in response to questions from The Star Press.

Costs covered the expense of organizing public and private meetings this spring and summer to formulate the proposal for funding, which included not only Delaware County but Madison County and others in East Central Indiana, as well as production and submission of East Central’s 134-page proposal and other expenses.

Most of the $161,100 went to Ninigret Partners, a Rhode Island-based “boutique economic design firm,” which was paid $146,000.

Another $6,500 went to planningNEXT, a Columbus, Ohio-based consultant.

Muncie wouldn't happen to need an economic dishevelment selector, would it?

Merciful closure for 1Si as three (!) Indiana Regional Cities Initiative lottery winners are announced.

File under: "For the record."

The regions identified below have as their hubs the cities of Evansville, South Bend and Ft. Wayne, respectively.

There'll be chickens in every pot, and the wine will flow like water, or at least Bud Light Lime. Fatted calves will be rendered onto veal, etc, and so forth.

Meanwhile, there is the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

We've got that going for us.

Pence, IEDC Put Stamp on Regional Cities Selections, by Andy Ober (Inside Indiana Business)

INDIANAPOLIS - Governor Mike Pence and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Board of Directors have approved the Indiana Regional Cities Strategic Review Committee recommendations. As a result, the southwest, north central and northeast regions will receive funding as part of the statewide Regional Cities Initiative.

Thanks, Pence: That letter you received about back taxes? It's fraudulent.

The News and Tribune ran an AP account of this story, but the one from The Journal Gazette (Ft. Wayne) is better and provides missing context.

In short, the state of Indiana engaged Navient, a Virginia-based "contractor," to be the official collections agency for its plan to harvest tax amnesty dollars. Left to its own devices, the contractor, which stands to benefit in proportion to the proceeds, clumsily "fished" Hoosier taxpayers with a letter implying they owed back taxes -- but didn't.

I knew it was garbage when I received it, a judgment affirmed by several on-line tax preparers and accountants.

It's a characteristically shabby episode in our saga of life in Pence World, and yet there's another angle to it, namely the volume of tax amnesty proceeds. After all, these are slated to fund the Regional Cities Initiative program.

Can we apply eminent domain to Navient?

State halts tax amnesty letter sent by contractor, by Niki Kelly

INDIANAPOLIS - The Indiana Department of Revenue has halted a letter sent by a state contractor that mischaracterizes 150,000 Hoosiers as owing back taxes.

The letter essentially was fishing for people to participate in the state's tax amnesty program and resulted in numerous complaints.

With only a few days left the amnesty program has brought in $54.8 million in cash payments - well below the projected totals ...

 ... The Indiana legislature authorized the amnesty at the request of Gov. Mike Pence. The first $84 million of the program is set to fund a regional cities economic development initiative. And the next $6 million goes to the Hoosier State Rail Line.

Indiana Regional Cities Initiative: One Southern Indiana's math didn't help its case, did it?

Let's reduce this to the most simple component.

One Southern Indiana convenes a meeting of politicians and acolytes, which I attended, and introduces its grand plan (Our Southern Indiana) for how a quasi-lottery windfall of $434-odd million is to be spent within the framework of a "regional" cities initiative.

1Si takes the Goebbelsian gambit a step further by shrouding it with MBA-level, lower-case tagging: "imagine - empower - illuminate," reminding me that buffed and polished PR-speak tends to send me running in search of a bucket.

Forget all the major topics of discussion before and after the triumphal roll-out meeting, including concerns about the powers of the Regional Development Authority, the potential for eminent domain controversies, and whether or not any of this money actually would be real according to commonly accepted definitions of reality -- and whether any of it would benefit ordinary working people.

Just keep your eyes on the dollar-sign propaganda.

1Si's lottery winning disbursement committee produces proposals for regional unity over a projected five county area, because, yet again, the founding shtick of the whole plan is regional cooperation. One would think this might imply a semblance of proportionality, given the goal of universal participation.

Except that it gets predictable, and quickly.

Greenway expansion funding (can't we finish the 1990s model first?) omits Harrison, Scott and Washington Counties entirely from direct investment. Waterfront development excludes the latter two counties, which don't front on the Ohio. Workforce development spreads a few million farthings around, some of which might leach into the outer reaches of the five-county target area. A paltry 200K is proposed to study regional water resources,which arguably is the most important consideration of all in a time of climate change.

This leaves roughly $252 million to  -- that's right, incentivize River Ridge, which already has been enabled by the state as a regional economic development "winner" for two decades, and showered with every imaginable form of abatement, subsidy and happy ending potions known to corporate welfare fetishists hereabouts.

Proportionately dividing Greenway and Waterfront proposals between counties, it leaves us with $300 million out of $434 million earmarked for Clark County alone.

How exactly does one sell this notion to Washington County -- to Floyd County?

To repeat: I understand that the situation is more nuanced than this. What I'm trying to convey to the usual suspects in imaginary One Southern Indiana Land is that given the numbers you provide, there is almost no compelling reason for a politician sitting outside Clark County to vote in favor of ceding authority when so little of the benefit accrues to his or her home turf.

And, again: Had 1Si led with even the slightest recognition that River Ridge's ongoing "empowerment" suggests regional transit options of the sort that big-time state funding could help realize, I might have given the business-as-usual elites the benefit of the doubt.

There are numerous other reasons to be suspicious of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, and Rep. Clere can paint it any way he likes, but until One Southern Indiana accepts a measure of responsibility for its ongoing institutionalized tone deafness, it's all moot.

New Albany state rep: Southern Indiana's regional funding bid derailed by 'misinformation', by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

When Indiana State Rep. Ed Clere co-authored legislation meant to inject major dollars into various regions of Indiana, he expected the largest hurdle to be getting that bill passed and funded.

What he didn't expect was for local Republican-led political bodies to shoot down a plan that was passed by a Republican-dominated legislature with support from a Republican governor.

But that's what happened ...

 ... And though competition for the funding was sure to be stiff, the Clark-Floyd county region was thought to be a strong contender, based on its size and proximity to the Louisville market.

But that's now moot for Southern Indiana, as the region has declined to submit an application, according to Wendy Dant Chesser, president and CEO of One Southern Indiana, the chamber of commerce for Clark and Floyd counties.

Floyd County Council rejects the RDA and RCI. Will the city of New Albany now rush to enlist?

For the sparse straight dope, read Chris Morris's description of yesterday's meeting, in which the Floyd County Council voted 5 - 2 to reject One Southern Indiana's entreaties and remain outside the Regional Development Authority (RDA) required to participate in the Regional Cities Initiative lottery.

The voting breakdown reflects this issue's strange non-partisan orientation. Four Republicans and a Democrat (Striegel) voted against, with Pickett (D) and Schellenberger (R) voting in favor.

Ed Clere is a big proponent of RCI, and this carried no weight yesterday.

If I understand this correctly, there is still a chance that the city of New Albany could take Floyd County's place in constituting the RDA, which must at bare minimum include two contiguous counties (so far, Clark and Scott).

However, these must have a combined population of 200,000 people. They don't. One Southern Indiana has stated that the RDA train leaves the station on August 31, although some dispute this date. It's a treasure hunt, not a Supreme Court ruling.

Meanwhile, Horseshoe-rich Harrison County is out, but Washington County's council has scheduled a reconsideration for August 20, having previously failed to support the measure in resolution.

New Albany's city council has a meeting the same day at 7:00 p.m. As a second-class city, New Albany is eligible to join the RDA on its own if the county does not. Jeffersonville might, too, but it's moot because Clark County is in.

Depending on whose numbers you use, flipping Washington County and adding New Albany would give Wendy Dant Chesser her 200K population numbers, making the RDA more formidable when the state reviews the RCI lottery applications.

Way back in December at the otherwise poorly attended merchant mixer meeting, both Jeff Gahan and Ed Clere were there to let these small business owners know about the approaching boon in state project funding.

I'm told by insiders that Gahan subsequently pulled away from active RCI support for fear that Floyd County's dominant GOP would be in the driver's seat. As of yesterday, this threat is removed, and if the city enlists, it'll be under terms of engagement dictated by the Democrats.

In short, Gahan  and the same usual suspects can be self-exalting heroes, offering a chimera to assuage their bumbling mismanagement of Pillsbury's departure , and achieving what even the powerful Clere could not produce in his own home county.

Surely this is powerful elixir, and irresistible to them -- and how many council members would oppose it?

I'm thinking as few as three. Personally, I  remain opposed.

There are many reasons to be suspicious of the Regional Cities Initiative, from the basis of the tax amnesty funding the state's portion, to eminent domain fears as yet unaddressed, and including reasonable doubts about a new layer of non-accountable governance, the latter something inadvertently emphasized by Jerry Finn yesterday.

Finn spoke of the Ohio River Bridges Project, and the Bridges Authority's work prefacing it, praising the body for its cooperative regional approach, when in reality it helped usher an era of an unnecessary downtown bridge and obligatory tolls to pay for it -- tolls on bridges in an auto-centric region, which hurt the working poor hardest, and which came about absent representative government's involvement, top-down, from the elites.

In fact, there is nothing in any of it -- RDA, RCI or One Southern Indiana's perennial definition of "economic development" -- that addresses matters like concentrated poverty, exclusionary housing or income equality.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the $450 million RCI package conceived by 1Si's committee of so-called experts that covers any ground whatever in New Albany, apart from something like $30 million in proposals to expand a Greenway that isn't finished yet.

There's nothing in it for Floyd County in the larger sense, at least not to represent a risk worth the county council's consideration.

It's all about regionalism, we're told -- and 60% of the money, which probably is fictitious, anyway, lands not  unexpectedly at River Ridge, and if that's the way is has to be, how about express bus service to get people in Georgetown to their jobs in Utica without having to drive each day?

Yesterday a Knobs resident mentioned a preference for organic growth. He's right, and he points to an underlying truth: We must cease accepting 1Si's insistence that the economic development model it touts is the only game in town.

According to whom?

I will continue to argue that 1Si's usual formula of trickle down corporate welfare is the problem, not the solution.

Still, visions of sugar plums dance in Jeff Gahan's and Adam Dickey's eyes this morning. Taking New Albany onto an RDA would be a political coup ... but nothing more. To repeat: For New Albany, nothing in any of this addresses fundamental projects, or recognizes the basic needs of the people who need the help the most.

Just say no.

Many reasons why "American public transportation is such a disaster."

I've reprinted what amounts to the topic sentence, but this is an article very much worth your time to read from start to finish.

Here's another bullet:

"Meanwhile, a few structural elements of American governance exacerbate anti-transit attitudes."

Imagine that. A few attitudinal elements of cloistered American thinking don't help, either.

There are numerous reasons to be suspicious of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, which the Floyd County Council rejected yesterday, but still might be joined by the city of New Albany.

To me, chief among them remains the fact that One Southern Indiana's assembled committee of supposed experts, charged with determining (in effect) how to make an entire region revolve around River Ridge's jobs, failed to include any semblance of public transit spending amid its $450 million wish list.

More on that elsewhere.

The real reason American public transportation is such a disaster, by Joseph Stromberg (Vox)

... Although history and geography are partly to blame, there's a deeper reason why American public transportation is so terrible. European, Asian, and Canadian cities treat it as a vital public utility. Most American policymakers — and voters — see transit as a social welfare program.

Will Floyd County ante up for RCI? Find out today at 4:00 p.m.

Don't look on Facebook to see the time for today's Floyd County Council meeting, at which there'll be a vote to enable a Regional Development Authority, as a preparatory step toward the Regional Cities Initiative.

It's at 4:00 p.m., which represents a meeting time change over what was previously announced. The News and Tribune sez:

The Floyd County Council is scheduled to vote on the ordinance Tuesday, Aug. 11, at 4 p.m. Washington County will reconsider the initiative at a special meeting on Aug. 20 at 1 p.m. Washington County previously passed on the resolution.

Scott County has approved an ordinance toward this end, and Harrison has rejected it. If I understand this correctly, an RDA can be formed with as few as two adjoining counties opting in. However, cities of a certain size (in our region, either Jeffersonville or New Albany) might choose to approve the RDA if either of their counties did not.

There's something for David Duggins to salivate over in case the county council strays.

There's an interesting sidebar in the newspaper article.

One Southern Indiana President Wendy Dant Chesser addressed those concerns and others Monday night. Dant Chesser said the members of the RDA would be appointed by county commissioners and that commissioners could remove an RDA member with a three-fourths vote.

There are three Floyd County commissioners. Two of them voting to remove an RDA member would constitute only a two-thirds vote -- insufficient according to Dan Chesser's reckoning.

See also:

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

RCI, River Ridge, one-way streets and a gas tax too low.

Last night, I finally got around to surveying the Regional Cities Initiative, and found it profoundly auto-centric -- no surprises there.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

The usual economic development suspects see $250 million in River Ridge investment as a goal worth surrendering local autonomy in multiple counties to attain. I'm seeing several thousand cars with one occupant each trying to make their way through densely populated urban areas lying between them and their destination, thus increasing the value extractors' pressure to preserve one-way street networks as de facto interstates, thereby maintaining the degradation of our cities.

But worse of all, I see the usual economic development suspects forever ignoring the realities of the preceding paragraph, because it's all about them and their world view, and the remainder of us be damned.

That's why I'm running for mayor. Can we at least begin a rational discussion which acknowledges more than one side?

By the way, Americans pay too little in gas tax.

Even Doubled, America's Gas Tax Would Be Low by World Standards ... And yet opposition to raising it remains fixed and fierce, by Eric Jaffe (City Lab)

The federal gas tax that pays for America’s highways hasn’t been raised in decades, but that doesn’t stop some determined lawmakers from trying. The latest effort comes via Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, who has introduced a plan to raise the tax four cents a year for four years then index it to inflation so it remains effective over time. The move would ultimately bring the fuel tax to 34 cents a gallon—nearly double the existing rate of 18.4 cents.

That might seem like a big bump, but even a gas tax twice as high the current one would be incredibly low by global standards.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Back on July 20, I attended a pep rally for public officials.

The topic was the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative (RCI), which first came to my attention in 2014 when both Jeff Gahan and Ed Clere attended a sparse merchant mixer meeting to tout the idea.

To me, RCI is just another big-ticket bauble to distract the attention of folks who should be concerned about why we can't fill potholes, reconvert streets to two-way traffic, or recognize the threat posed to us all by income inequality of the sort that RCI's backers accept as the default rules of the game. But I don't, and had the best of intentions to write about my experience before today.

Sorry about that. It didn't happen. RCI is a multi-faceted boondoggle, the usual suspects are swarming, and I've been busy with other things. In the absence of coherence, I'll go scattershot and try to provide a broad outline peppered with venom.

On Monday night, the Clark County Council approved an ordinance authorizing the Regional Development Authority (RDA), this being the necessary first step for participating governmental bodies. Opponents of RCI reckon that the Floyd County Council will follow suit on Tuesday.

Learn about the case against RCI here, and in this video by Martina Webster. There are valid concerns about eminent domain, crony capitalism, corporate welfare and the largely non-existent sources of local matching funds, among others.

Fortunately, none of this means that RCI is a done deal -- at least yet.

The state will choose two winning contestants from those regions submitting proposals, with the losers queuing to try again next time, so it's rather like uncertainty of buying a lottery ticket combined with the Nigerian bank scam e-mail: Even if you win, you have to pay to get the money (20% local match, and 60% from unnamed sources).

Lagos ... meet Galena.

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Purportedly, RCI is the solution to the answer to a question: What's Indiana's biggest issue pertaining to economic development, at least according to how the state's Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation define economic "development"?

They believe it is Indiana's population stagnation, "largely attributed to its shortfall in retaining and attracting talent." Read about it here ... and here.

This excerpt is from Elizabeth Beilman's coverage.

 ... The Regional Cities Initiative, or RCI, is a state program intended to support “quality of place” projects through regional collaboration.

The state has allocated $84 million to be split among two regions and used for redevelopment projects that would transform those regions into more desirable places to live ...

 ... The General Assembly passed RCI legislation in May, establishing the funds and outlining the criteria for the IEDC to consider when choosing which regions to award funds to.

State Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, who was House co-sponsor of the legislation, said the RCI was a “no brainer.”

“I think what it boils down to is this has the potential to be a transformative opportunity for Southern Indiana ...” Clere said.

Multiple regions across the state are in the process of submitting their comprehensive project plans, due Aug. 31.

One Southern Indiana has taken the lead in producing this plan through a new initiative called “Our Southern Indiana.” The plan includes developments across Clark, Floyd, Washington, Scott and Harrison counties as the Southern Indiana region.

Wendy Dant Chesser, 1si president and CEO, presented the five key areas that the projects cover — waterfront development, regional greenway system, workforce development, River Ridge Commerce Center economic engine and regional water resources ...

 ... In order to be chosen by the IEDC for RCI funds, the five counties’ fiscal bodies that form the region here must approve the formation of a Regional Development Authority, or RDA. Five non-elected or nongovernmental representatives will be chosen and approved by the each county commission.

If chosen, the Southern Indiana RDA would execute the plan that Our Southern Indiana has devised with the input of local officials and residents through various public forums.

A local ordinance and by-laws — which Our Southern Indiana has preliminarily drafted — would outline specific restrictions or obligations tailored to this region’s needs.

The IEDC guidelines suggest the projects are funded through 20 percent RCI funds, 20 percent local public funds and 60 percent private funds.

I'm tired and sober, so let's put it this way.

River Ridge accounts for roughly 60% of the "wish" funding presented as part of the RCI proposal by One Southern Indiana's front committee.

River Ridge was crony capitalism's chosen regional winner decades ago.

The rest of us are intended as ancillary housing habitations for River Ridge.

There's a toll bridge being built straight to River Ridge.

Soon the city of Jeffersonville will be renamed Amazonapolis, and yet, with $434 million being sought, $252 million is slated to go to River Ridge ... and a paltry $200,000 to a study of the state of the region's water resources.

That's an afterthought, a puddle of spittle, and probably less than Dan Coffey has cleared from demolition kickbacks just this year.

And: Not a penny is proposed for public transit, arguably the finest regional use of such funding if one accepts the primacy of River Ridge ... which I don't wish to do at all.

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On the day of the pep rally, Ron Grooms made a typically leaden speech, which of course was widely praised by the usual economic development sycophants in clucking attendance, even though it sounded entirely like the dubbed English language version of the commissars praising falsified crop yields from atop Lenin's Mausoleum during May Day parades of old Moscow times.

Grooms recited the banal boilerplate, stressing how important it is for us to make Indiana a great place to live, to attract talent, and keep our best and brightest right here in Hoosierland.

I've been livid ever since.

What Ron Grooms was, and remains, is an outspoken, unrepentant and Kool-Aid swilling proponent of Indiana's catastrophic Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), precisely the sort of bigoted fundamentalist gibberish actively assisting in the dispersal of Indiana's population, and the prevention of investment in the state, but recognition of facts like these lie so far beyond Grooms's reach as a partisan political hack that he stood right there in a room filled with regional elected officials and told them, in effect: Only by creating an RDA to sign onto the coin-flip of the RCI would they be able to cancel out the deleterious effects of RFRA, as foisted on them by his own party's hypocritical Torquemada wing, to which he is slavishly devoted.

Grooms sees no contradiction in creating one mandatory piece of bureaucracy to chase people away, and then establishing another to bring them back, and mayor's race or no mayor's race, had I packed a Boston Cream Pie for lunch that day, I'd have sprinted to the front and crammed it in his face.

My question, which unfortunately there was no time to ask, and hence this column's title:

Yo, Ron -- When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

See you at Pine View on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting's been changed to 4:00 p.m., in case you were wondering.

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Recent columns:

August 6: ON THE AVENUES: Money is the ultimate bully.

July 30: ON THE AVENUES: Homegrown New Albany, but not in a good way.

July 23: ON THE AVENUES: A citizen's eloquent complaint about the parking debacle at River Run reminds us that planners and brooms go hand in hand.

July 16: ON THE AVENUES: Louisville Beer, then and now ... and cheers to Rotary.

July 9: ON THE AVENUES: A mayoral petition as prologue to history.

July 2: ON THE AVENUES: "Water on the brains: Much less for far more will keep us swimming in it."

NYC express buses, and how the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative cannot do them here.

I mention this not because the idea of express buses is equally relevant to New York City and metro Louisville.

Rather, as explained at the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative meeting I attended two Mondays ago, out of a total of $434 million in wish list items compiled by One Southern Indiana's committee (and taking them at face value, and ignoring the hours we've yet to spend trying to determine whether the initiative itself is worth consideration), $252 million would go to make River Ridge even more humongous than it is already, while the amount pledged to developing regional public transit, apart from expanding the Greenway's pedways before it's finished crossing Silver Creek, comes to ... that's right.

$0.00.

Notions like this must wait for a later plan. In short, excepting the Greenway, the bulk of this unprecedented investment, which probably isn't, although we shan't talk about it now, goes toward reinforcing the prevailing auto-centrism that already plagues us.

I almost forgot, but in New York City, they're adding express buses.

Express Bus Service Shows Promise in New York, by Michael Kimmelman (New York Times)

Last week, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled its first express bus line: the 86th Street crosstown, running back and forth between York Avenue on the east side and Broadway on the west. There was a news conference to celebrate, at Columbus Avenue. Polly Trottenberg, the mayor’s transportation commissioner, hailed “modest investments” yielding dividends in terms of saved time for long-beleaguered riders, to which Ben Kallos, a city councilman, added that time saved translates into revenue for businesses whose taxes help pay for further transit improvements: a virtuous circle.

The route is not actually full-dress express service. It doesn’t include a dedicated, camera-policed lane all the way across town or traffic lights programmed to stay green when buses approach. There are just short segments of bus lanes that let buses jump traffic queues at strategic places. Even so, with 24,000 daily riders, 86th Street is notorious for endless lines of passengers waiting to swipe their cards. Any upgrade helps.

I'm delighted to eavesdrop on today's Indiana Regional Cities Initiative session.

I very much appreciate Wendy Dant Chesser, One Southern Indiana's President and CEO (and online.org/web-pages/professional-development/certified-economic-developer-accreditation/">CEcD), writing to invite me to Regional Cities Initiative discussion this afternoon.

The other candidates for mayor have received this invite because they already hold office. You are welcome to attend, as well.

I'll certainly be there this afternoon to learn more, although my level of skepticism is extremely high, because from what I've seen from this so far, it's classic bait 'n' switch boondoggle.

Council Night 3: The Regional Cities Initiative's bait 'n' switch comes to a Greenway near you.

 ... Here was the mayor himself, spending half an hour describing the Regional Cities Initiative, a strictly "might be" iffy proposition, tantamount to time spent allocating future lottery winnings to the background noise of a Disney soundtrack instead of counting the change actually occupying the jar. If only someone other than a dissident like me would have said: "But if it would help businesses downtown, couldn't we change the streets (to two-way) next week?"

I believe it is a mistake to become enamored of supposed windfalls and panaceas when we can't even keep the storm drains clear or design streets correctly. Fundamental infrastructure comes first, then afterward, whatever emanates from getting the basics right. Basketball players are advised to dribble first, then practice slam dunks.

Even if the Regional Cities plan weren't a probable funding chimera, somewhat similar to economic planning according to a random spin of the wheel, it would make no sense to speak of any other application in our immediate vicinity than some configuration of enhanced multi-modal transit options.

If we've spent a couple billion on roadway expansion via the ORBP, can there be a bus or two traveling between New Albany and River Ridge as a corrective?

Indiana Secretary of Commerce to speak Monday on Regional Cities plan, at N and T

Regional Cities Initiative 2: "Clark County balks at statewide development initiative."

Iamhoosier gets straight the core of the gist in the matter.

Clark County understands. Votes 7-0 against RDA. Perhaps they remember what happened when a non elected board was put in charge of the bridge$ project. Big guys profit and the rest of us suffer.

This post has a first part.

Clark County balks at statewide development initiative, by Elizabeth DePompei (News and Tribune)

CLARK COUNTY — An attempt to get Clark County on board with a statewide initiative that could spur economic development in Southern Indiana was knocked down this week when officials voted to deny a resolution seeking preliminary support ...

 ... “I was surprised that the council would not agree to come to the table to talk about an application so that at least a portion of that $84 million would go to projects in our area,” (1Si CEO Wnedy Dant) Chesser said ...

 ... “When you give up your control of development and growth and you take it away from the people and put it in the hands of people who may not even live in this area, you’re pandering to some special interests somewhere,” Clark County Councilwoman Kelly Khuri said. “We need to make the decisions — the commissioners and the council and the mayors.”

Regional Cities Initiative 1: Cooperation inducement, or bait 'n' switch?

There's an emerging mantra in my world.

Every day, not every now and then.

"Day in, day out" encapsulates my preferred tactic to achieve progress. Speaking for myself as the owner of an independent local business, the daily business climate almost always trumps special, one-off events. It is the undertow, and the cash flow.

In terms of small business, the main point is determining what can be done to improve quality of life every single day, rather than hope a one-off festival or recurring special event attracts "new" and potentially returning customers. If the festival or event is of sufficient gravity to attract a crowd, it stands to reason that most attendees are coming for the music, art or beer -- not to take note of the surroundings. Some surely will, but spreading the risk and the reward throghout the year, every day, is the better formula for ultimate success.

It is uncommon for me to reprint an article so soon (below), but with New Albany having so many "micro" issues going chronically unaddressed, the randomly "macro" aspect of Indiana's Regional Cities Initiative has struck me as a red flag (or more aptly, red herring) from the very start.

More succinctly, when One Southern Indiana starts getting giggly and giddy over the Regional Cities Initiative, it meant we should be getting very cautious. As we'll see in part two, Clark County's council already has.

I'm not entirely rejecting the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative.

As the Indy Star noted recently, it might have genuine merit. When a WDRB reporter asked me what I thought, we had a long conversation, and I said that in the end, whatever compels adjacent communities talking with each other probably is a good thing.

Conversely, we could be talking regionally right now, and working on smaller projects right now. There is a "win the lottery" aspect of the Regional Cities Initiative that is worrisome, and the involvement of the same old regional suspects who brought us the Bridges Boondoggle is even more alarming, owing to yet another loss of local planning sovereignty (see part two).

Might we finish a project first, before embarking on a moon landing?

The following was posted on January 5, 2015.

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Council Night 3: The Regional Cities Initiative's bait 'n' switch comes to a Greenway near you.

Before tying things into the council meeting tonight, let's catch up.

The most recent downtown merchant "mixer" meeting was held on December 16 at Strandz & Threadz, and weirdly enough for a group that seldom attracts more than a dozen attendees, and is routinely ignored by the city's ostensible "economic development" officials, the chat was attended by both State Representative Ed Clere and Mayor Jeff Gahan.

They were there to inform struggling downtown merchants about the potential sheen of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, which at first glance appears to be one of those world-classic, chamber-endorsed, bait 'n' switch ideas designed to divert attention from the mundane daily grind of the here and now (which abjectly terrifies City Hall) and instead, to fix all our gazes toward a bountiful harvest ... a coin flip to be determined some day, down the road.

I was fascinated by the spectacle. In November, David "Industrial Park First" Duggins had dominated the merchant meeting as visiting enforcer, there to silence me and gloweringly assure shop owners that they didn't want to hear about the potential for two-way streets to improve their businesses quite soon, in the short term.

Then a month later, here was the mayor himself, spending half an hour describing the Regional Cities Initiative, a strictly "might be" iffy proposition, tantamount to time spent allocating future lottery winnings to the background noise of a Disney soundtrack instead of counting the change actually occupying the jar. If only someone other than a dissident like me would have said:

"But if it would help business downtown, couldn't we change the streets next week?"

The fact is, the missed opportunity cost of Jeff Gahan’s present-day neglect of small business is irrefutable, and the evidence to support my position is overwhelming, but I've already made these points.

Back to tonight, when a council currently configured to do quite little will listen as the Greenway explains its place in that future largesse from Big Daddy Pencebucks.

McLaughlin to seek third term as Mayor Gahan's pliant boy (News and Tribune)

 ... Though there’s only one voting item on Monday’s agenda — a final reading on a road salt purchase appropriation — the body is slated to hear a report on a potential expansion of some of the features of the Ohio River Greenway.

After holding public meetings on the idea in Clark and Floyd counties, representatives of the Paul Ogle Foundation will detail their plan to assist the Ohio River Greenway Commission to “possibly elevate the Greenway to the next level in both scope and scale.”

The Ogle Foundation hopes to pair its plan with the Regional Cities Initiative to be considered by the state legislature this year. The legislation could leverage up to $1 billion in public and private investment for infrastructure and quality-of-life projects around the state, as communities would compete to garner those funds.

Right now, we have a few hundred thousand dollars worth of bigger fish to fry, and so at least it's encouraging to hear Scott Blair publicly question the latest unelected back room board diktat, this one being last week's behind-the-council's-posterior decision by the Board of Works to fund an ill-considered farmers market buildout and a bizarrely situated dog park, three miles out of town on Budd Road.

Councilman Scott Blair said he would like to see the city’s dog park, which is slated to be constructed at Cannon Acres, moved near the Greenway to further bolster the usefulness of the walking and biking path.

“We need to add amenities along that facility,” Blair said.

What we really need to do is finish the Greenway's decades-long first phase, don't you think? After all, Silver Creek might as well be Puget Sound for all the good an unbridged Greenway in pieces does us.

One Southern Indiana is giddy over the Regional Cities Initiative, meaning it's time to be very scared.

The reporter and I had a long and enjoyable conversation on the topic of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, during which I did not back away from my original assessment of the initiative as something aimed at distracting and intoxicating the usual planning and cheerleading suspects (read: One Southern Indiana) rather than helping better the vicinity.

Seriously: You want 1Si determining "quality of life" for revitalizing urban areas?

The reason I say this: Even if accepted at face value, it's a lottery scheme (a) not every area can win, and (b) a potential "win" that assumes much additional funding beyond what the state will provide, thus (c) favoring grandiose future planning (floating volleyball courts, convention centers) rather than the nuts and bolts of small neighborhood projects added together to achieve sustainable critical mass.

In short, the state constantly rigs the game to deny funding for everyday projects, instead offering a coin-flip panacea seemingly designed to inspire local politicians to begin commissioning plaques.

Accordingly, I was at the merchant meeting when Jeff Gahan attended for the sole purpose of touting the regional initiative to shopkeepers whose daily prospects are damaged by one-way arterial streets, even as Gahan plotted to delay the Speck curative another 1 - 2 - 3 years, or until doomsday -- whichever comes first.

But if big thinking is what you want, then there's only one choice. Ultimately, lateral east-west transit connections between Jeffersonville and New Albany, as an alternative to our current state of automotive connections, makes the most sense when speaking about millions of dollars. Ideally a north-south transit link with Louisville would some day come about, and then we'd be getting somewhere.

Conversely, we might stretch the Speck downtown street network plan throughout the Falls Cities area, linking it with various north-south "rails to trails" and hire mercenaries to seize the K & I Bridge so it can be returned to use.

I'm not joking.

SUNDAY EDITION | Southern Indiana leaders look to boost economic development, by Chris Otts (WDRB)

The Regional Cities Initiative, a program championed by Gov. Mike Pence and recently approved by state lawmakers, seeks to help regions like Southern Indiana develop “national brands” as places with superior quality of life – which, in turn, is meant to boost population growth in Indiana.

Council Night 3: The Regional Cities Initiative's bait 'n' switch comes to a Greenway near you.

Before tying things into the council meeting tonight, let's catch up.

The most recent downtown merchant "mixer" meeting was held on December 16 at Strandz & Threadz, and weirdly enough for a group that seldom attracts more than a dozen attendees, and is routinely ignored by the city's ostensible "economic development" officials, the chat was attended by both State Representative Ed Clere and Mayor Jeff Gahan.

They were there to inform struggling downtown merchants about the potential sheen of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, which at first glance appears to be one of those world-classic, chamber-endorsed, bait 'n' switch ideas designed to divert attention from the mundane daily grind of the here and now (which abjectly terrifies City Hall) and instead, to fix all our gazes toward a bountiful harvest ... a coin flip to be determined some day, down the road.

I was fascinated by the spectacle. In November, David "Industrial Park First" Duggins had dominated the merchant meeting as visiting enforcer, there to silence me and gloweringly assure shop owners that they didn't want to hear about the potential for two-way streets to improve their businesses quite soon, in the short term.

Then a month later, here was the mayor himself, spending half an hour describing the Regional Cities Initiative, a strictly "might be" iffy proposition, tantamount to time spent allocating future lottery winnings to the background noise of a Disney soundtrack instead of counting the change actually occupying the jar. If only someone other than a dissident like me would have said:

"But if it would help business downtown, couldn't we change the streets next week?"

The fact is, the missed opportunity cost of Jeff Gahan’s present-day neglect of small business is irrefutable, and the evidence to support my position is overwhelming, but I've already made these points.

Back to tonight, when a council currently configured to do quite little will listen as the Greenway explains its place in that future largesse from Big Daddy Pencebucks.

McLaughlin to seek third term as Mayor Gahan's pliant boy (News and Tribune)

 ... Though there’s only one voting item on Monday’s agenda — a final reading on a road salt purchase appropriation — the body is slated to hear a report on a potential expansion of some of the features of the Ohio River Greenway.

After holding public meetings on the idea in Clark and Floyd counties, representatives of the Paul Ogle Foundation will detail their plan to assist the Ohio River Greenway Commission to “possibly elevate the Greenway to the next level in both scope and scale.”

The Ogle Foundation hopes to pair its plan with the Regional Cities Initiative to be considered by the state legislature this year. The legislation could leverage up to $1 billion in public and private investment for infrastructure and quality-of-life projects around the state, as communities would compete to garner those funds.

Right now, we have a few hundred thousand dollars worth of bigger fish to fry, and so at least it's encouraging to hear Scott Blair publicly question the latest unelected back room board diktat, this one being last week's behind-the-council's-posterior decision by the Board of Works to fund an ill-considered farmers market buildout and a bizarrely situated dog park, three miles out of town on Budd Road.

Councilman Scott Blair said he would like to see the city’s dog park, which is slated to be constructed at Cannon Acres, moved near the Greenway to further bolster the usefulness of the walking and biking path.

“We need to add amenities along that facility,” Blair said.

What we really need to do is finish the Greenway's decades-long first phase, don't you think? After all, Silver Creek might as well be Puget Sound for all the good an unbridged Greenway in pieces does us.