From railbanking to mountebanks, or compensation for landowners in rails-to-trails projects.

I just knew Shane would be asking about this excellent new word.

moun·te·bank
/ˈmoun(t)əˌbaNGk/
noun
plural noun: mountebanks
a person who deceives others, especially in order to trick them out of their money; a charlatan.
synonyms: swindler, charlatan, confidence trickster, fraud, fraudster, impostor, trickster, hoaxer

Meanwhile Mayor Jeff M(ountebank) Gahan Presents:

"Please focus on a future rails-to-trails panacea situated almost entirely out of city limits, rather than asking questions about how I've botched the Riverview Tower situation, fumbled the street grid "modernization" effort, missed the opportunity to brand downtown with anything apart from my own face ... "

Bait and switch: Empathy on empty as Jeff Gahan asks you to think about an embryonic rails-to-trails fantasy rather than the resident killed by a driver while riding his bicycle downtown.

Rails, trails, holy grails: "That's why we're here," babbles Gahan about yet another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to economically develop others at his own city's expense.

ON THE AVENUES: "That's why I voted no," explains Scott Stewart, pausing to duck rocks feebly lobbed by Team Gahan's propaganda pygmies.

This timely article in the Indy Star clarifies some of the issues pertaining to the acquisition of property for rails-to-trails projects: "Unlike eminent domain cases, in which the government is required to approach the homeowners with a fair settlement, landowners in railbanking must sue the government, otherwise the state takes their land and they receive nothing."

Nickel Plate Trail gets fed go-ahead, so property owners line up for payday, by John Tuohy

FISHERS — For homeowners along the Nickel Plate line, it might feel a little like moving from a country road to a hectic main drag when the railroad corridor is converted to a greenway in Hamilton County.

Instead of living along a train track that hasn’t been used since 2015 and was mostly dormant before that, hundreds of bicyclists, joggers and skaters can be expected to pass by the residents' back yards each day over paved asphalt.

Some homeowners, like Marcy Kellar, find that prospect a bit rattling.

“I like the idea of a trail but am concerned about privacy,” said Kellar, who lives in the Heritage Meadows subdivision just south of 116th Street in Fishers. “The tracks are 30 feet from my back door and on a grade of about 15 feet, so it's a clear view of my window.”

But as Kellar and hundreds of other landowners recently discovered, at least they stand to receive something in return for the inconvenience.

Roughly 1,000 deed holders in Marion and Hamilton counties on 20 miles of the Nickel Plate line could collect between $10,000 and $100,000 for letting the trail be built on parts of their land.

Your turn, buster -- or, this isn't the usual rant about potholes.

I'm eternally fascinated by the notion that potholes, as a specific minority subset of broader street and highway conditions, can be relied upon to trigger endless, intemperate diatribes and vitriolic rants of the sort that almost never greet so many structural inadequacies (water, health care, sanitation, affordable housing) that impact the living conditions of humans when they're not inside their cars.

Over the past century, our entire civilization has been radically reconfigured to meet the every need of your car, and you're generally spared paying the REAL COSTS of maintaining this lopsided value system -- and yet you're still not happy.

You won't pick up the trash or shovel snow off the sidewalk in front of your own house, but damn it, the streets must be paved with gold to get you back and forth, and the traffic lights synchronized, and any impediment to speed -- including other human beings relying on two legs rather than six cylinders -- obliged to get the hell out of your way.

Come to think of it, I don't recall participating in the election that resulted in your automotive needs being declared paramount.

I'll tell you about potholes: If you didn't insist on driving at interstate speeds on side streets, and if you paid attention to what you're doing behind the wheel instead of trolling co-workers on Facebook, maybe potholes wouldn't bend your rims and ruin your climate-controlled mobile sofa.

When are THEY going to fix the potholes?

Howzabout YOU get out there and do it, huh?

Two guys tired of waiting for the city to fill potholes, so they're doing it themselves, by Domenica Bongiovanni (Indy Star)

You could argue that citizens filling potholes is a popular storyline in Indiana. "Parks and Recreation's" Ron Swanson met his third wife after she complained to the fictional city of Pawnee about gaping craters on her street.

The famously libertarian Swanson, played by actor Nick Offerman, cut through the bureaucratic red tape and shoveled asphalt into the chuckholes himself.

After filling a pothole near 52nd Street and College Avenue on Saturday, IUPUI student Chris Lang laughed about the episode, which aired on NBC in October of 2012.

"I even have a Ron Swanson poster up," Lang said of his apartment decor. "I like him a lot."

In fact, some of Swanson's libertarian beliefs overlap with those of Lang, 22, and Mike Warren, 28. The duo created Open Source Roads, a grassroots organization comprising volunteers who fix Indianapolis' pothole-riddled streets. Open Source is a call to action that's built upon action itself. Warren and Lang — and sometimes up to five of their friends — spend their spare time fixing some of the worst chuckholes on side streets.

"We want to fill a lot of potholes, and we want people to help out and see that we don't need to rely on this monopoly for it, and I want that to be what starts the people in charge talking about change," Lang said.

"If the city is going to fail at their own monopoly, why should they have that monopoly?" he said.

Indianapolis strip club owner attacks councilman for being "pompous." Heck, he could have TASED him -- right, Dugout?

For video, follow the Indy Star link.

In New Albany, it would have been the Common Council, not an Alcoholic Beverage Board snoozer, and here the councilman would be attacking the strip club owner, as Dan Coffey once vowed to do to a private citizen while disguised as a copperhead snake.

It's Halloween every day in the city's 1st council district, but I digress.

Coincidentally, this helps to explain why there has been so little support through the years for filming our city's city council meetings. True, it's gotten less fractious recently, but let the constituents see what really goes on, and strip club attendance might go down.

Or up.

Man accused of attacking Indy Councilman Jeff Miller shares his side of story, by Ryan Martin (Indy Star)

The owner of a south-side strip club is accused of attacking Indianapolis councilman Jeff Miller during a public meeting Monday in an act of retaliation over Miller's yearslong opposition to the bar's liquor license.

Police say Jeffery Moe, 51, grabbed Miller by the throat with both hands, picked him up and slammed his head against a wall. Moe later told police he "cleaned (Miller's) clock and I'll do it again," according to court documents filed Tuesday.

But Moe, who faces two felony and two misdemeanor charges, disputes how the attack was characterized by police. Moe told IndyStar he grabbed Miller's collar and shook him.

“I did not grab his neck. I shook him,” Moe, who owns Lenny's Gentlemen's Club, told IndyStar. “I was not intending to injure Mr. Miller. I was meaning to tell him to stop being a pompous politician.”

The Cosmopolitan: Turns out The Breakwater isn't the first fire at a Flaherty & Collins development under construction.

The article is eight years old. It was anonymously written, and it is the only post at the blog. Links are broken. By 2010, the arrested man had been released for lack of evidence, and the Cosmopolitan development was completed and opened.

Therefore, this link is purely for entertainment value.

Until it isn't. Thanks, A.

Tin Foil Hats? (The Cosmopolitan Fire: Flaherty and Collins Uncovered)

By now everyone in Indy has heard about the fire that destroyed the downtown development known as "The Cosmopolitan". This project, backed by Flaherty and Collins, was a $37m retail/apartment development slated to open in May of this year.

Recently an arrest has been made, and Brandon Burns, a 23 year old homeless man, has been charged with arson in the incident.

Does anyone else smell the bullshit surrounding this entire affair?!?

I am not the type to wear the tin foil hat, or scream conspiracy from the rooftops, but come on! Let's take a look at some facts, shall we?

New Gahanian coping mechanisms? I choose Vonnegut-inspired cocktails.

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"

Try 11 Vonnegut-inspired cocktails, by Amy Haneline (Indy Star)

It's the Year of Vonnegut. Why not toast the famous Hoosier author with a cocktail or two?

Visit Indy has partnered with some of Indy's best bars and top bartenders to craft a tour of 11 cocktails that are inspired by Kurt Vonnegut. The drinks are on the bars' menus through April 16, leading up to the grand opening of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in its new and bigger location at 646 Massachusetts Ave.

Born in Indianapolis in 1922, Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis and attended Shortridge High School. He served in the Air Force during World War II and was captured by German soldiers. Surviving the firebombing at Dresden, Vonnegut returned to the U.S. and began his writing career. His most famous works include "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle," "The Sirens of Titan" and "Player Piano." Vonnegut died April 11, 2007, at the age of 84.

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.

Indianapolis: "Their deaths not only raise questions about whether the city is doing enough to protect its residents, but also call into question the city’s spending priorities over the years."

In New Albany, how many millions have been spent on showplace park projects?

Left in the dark: Indy's deadly streets, by John Tuohy and Tony Cook (Indy Star)

... In other cities, the motorist might have noticed a pedestrian walking along a busy, high-speed street such as Georgetown Road because it likely would have been illuminated by the most basic of city services — a streetlight.

But not in Indianapolis.

Here, city officials stopped adding streetlights more than 35 years ago to save money on the city’s $2.9 million annual electric bill. Compounding the problem, they also failed to build any new sidewalks for 20 years during that time.

It has made for a lethal combination.

An IndyStar investigation found that 585 pedestrians have been killed in Marion County since the streetlight ban in 1980. Last year, 27 pedestrians were run down, more than in any year since the moratorium started.

The Indy rental experience and our Breakwater: "Why the discrepancy between high demand for housing in the city but low growth in occupancy rates?"

In which you put yourself into Flaherty and Collins' shoes, up there in exploding Indianapolis, on that day when the fax first arrived from David Duggins, the one expressing keen interest in top-dollar pads for millennials and oh, by the way, there's a few million of TIF lube and a line or three of sewer tap-in waivers waiting -- then a colleague says "hey, what's that?"

"Dunno, some rube in Hicksville by Kentucky somewhere. Where are you headed?"

"The bathroom; those tacos are lighting me up. I've been breaking wind all morning."

(Breaking wind ... hmm)

"Hey, wait -- ever heard of Nawbany?"

Read the whole piece.

From our perspective Down Here, only an excerpt is necessary to make the point, followed by Nuvo's first example of high-priced vacancy -- featuring a familiar name.

The rent is too damn high! How Indy's rental boom leaves a lot of people at the curb, by Annika Larson (NUVO)

 ... Why the discrepancy between high demand for housing in the city but low growth in occupancy rates?

Maybe it's the lack of understanding what most millennials and the working middle class need. Or perhaps it's the price-gouging that luxury apartment complexes impose on their tenants (extra fees for parking, pool access, gym access, pay-by-load laundry rooms, glamorous lobbies, full balconies, a bigger bathroom, etc.). After all, these apartments are supposedly aimed at the top 1 percent of millennials that are making around $90,000 a year. The reality of Indianapolis demographics is that the average household income is $63,865 at the median age of 34 years old. Under the age of 25, the median income rests at $28,553. That's not to say there aren't people who earn the top dollars here in Indy, but they just don't exist in high enough numbers to fill up all of the amenity-rich apartments that are currently built — and have yet to be built — in 2016.

Instead, most people — specifically the younger demographic — currently living in Indianapolis (or looking at Indianapolis as a prospective future home) look toward the neighborhoods directly outside of the city, such as the Old Northside, Fountain Square, and Woodruff Place. The luxury apartment boom actually makes certain parts of the city unattainable for most people, specifically the Wholesale District and Monument Circle. Development of these living spaces is supposed to cater to residents who wish to make direct downtown living a reality, but high rent turns people away. So, direct downtown neighborhoods like the Wholesale District and Mass Ave aren't seeing the vast influx of new residents and high rates of growth that was projected — instead, neighborhoods directly outside of the city are seeing growth because it's the only affordable way to attain the vibe of downtown living ...

Photo credit: Annika Larson, NUVO

Axis Apartments, Flaherty and Collins

• 336 units total
• 303 units occupied
• 33 units vacant
• Studios start at $1,245/month

ON THE AVENUES: Hello, I must be going.

ON THE AVENUES: Hello, I must be going. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Almost every other month for the past seven years, I’ve attended a Wednesday meeting of the directors of the Brewers of Indiana Guild.

For a long time, these meetings were held at Broad Ripple Brewing Company, Indiana’s first brewpub in the contemporary era. Later they shifted to Sun King Brewing Company (downtown on College Avenue), the state’s second largest production brewery behind Three Floyds.

More recently, the guild has rented an office suite in the basement of an apartment building, formerly a warehouse, just north of Massachusetts Avenue. The new location is a 20-minute walk from Sun King, and I’ve taken to parking there and enjoying the stroll.

Yesterday I was in town by 10:30 a.m. for a 1:00 p.m. meeting, so there was time for a longer walk, south and west past Bankers Life Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium, followed by a lunch of delicious stuffed grape leaves at Grecian Garden in the City Market, ground floor, right by the front door.

Marina Mavrikis’s pastitsio is to die for, too.

There’s a place called Henry’s Coffee Bistro on East Street, a block off Massachusetts Avenue on the way to the guild’s office suite. My habit is to stop there on the way for an espresso. At meeting’s end, the path back to Sun King leads past St. Joseph Brewery, operating in a church sanctuary by Lockerbie Square.

Yesterday I bought a growler of Popemeal Oat Stout there and brought it home to accompany a dinner of leftover Finnish-style Cod Bake and seasoned rice. Baltic Porter might have been a better choice geographically, but I wanted a beer around 5% abv, not 7%.

---

Wednesday was my second visit to Indianapolis in less than a week. On Saturday, Diana and I drove up to the capital for the guild’s annual Winterfest at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, and although I’d expressed eagerness to sample beers with 7,000 of my closest friends, we never actually made it.

Therein lies a story.

We departed New Albany for Indianapolis on Saturday morning immediately following restorative Honey Creme doughnuts, wasting no time because we wanted to explore the Fountain Square district, which is southeast of the city’s epicenter via Virginia Avenue and the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, an urban walking and biking path running alongside the street.

Had the date not been January 30, it would have been a gorgeous spring day in early April. After coffee at Funkyard Art, we browsed a few shops, then enjoyed a beer at Fountain Square Brewing Company. Our choice for lunch was the End of the Line Public House, which reminds us that Indianapolis’s long defunct street cars used to turn around right across the street.

Seated close enough for inadvertent eavesdropping were two couples talking about Winterfest, which at this point was about two hours from starting. One couple had tickets, and the other did not.

The ones who didn't had come from out of state for the occasion, and apparently the Indianapolis residents were supposed to have purchased four tickets, but somehow dropped the ball. The festival was sold out, and they were debating creative ways to gain entry.

Ironically, I’d started the day with four Winterfest tickets. Two were my director comps, and two were given to me by a friend in Louisville. He couldn’t go, and asked me to give them away, which I did – at Fountain Square Brewing Company, where the bartender was maintaining a waiting list.

Had I known … at any rate, the out-of-towners at End of the Line were growing desperate, and it was an easy fix to make. I gave them our last two tickets with only one small caveat. They were to find Salt Creek Brewery's booth, say hello to my friend Brad Hawkins, and have a sample or three for me.

I hope they had a good time. All’s well that ends well, and we spent the next few hours enjoying the great outdoors, walking Virginia Avenue into the heart of downtown, looping past Monument Circle and the City Market, and stopping at Chilly Water Brewing on the way back for another round of beers.

The urban changes along this corridor between downtown and Fountain Square are utterly fascinating, but in fact, most of downtown Indianapolis is a construction zone. Dozens of buildings are being erected, many of them residential.

These days, I know too much about social justice issues, like America’s worsening affordable housing shortage, to accept all of what we saw at face value as “progress” absent qualifiers. Just the same, the scale of investment and activity is staggering.

More importantly, there is a brewery every half mile or so, enough to suggest that maybe we’re winning at least one revolutionary battle.

---

The weather was much cooler on Wednesday, and the long walk through downtown Indianapolis was bracing. Fortunately, sweet and tart Avgolemono (lemon and egg) sauce and intensely roasted coffee can take the chill off any overcast day, and the exercise felt good.

In due course I tendered my resignation from the board, effective on Sunday, March 6 -- the date of the guild’s annual meeting, which caps its second annual Indiana Craft Brewers Conference weekend in Ft. Wayne. Accordingly, it will be my final hurrah as a director. I’m eager to see who is chosen to occupy my seat.

In general terms, a director serving on the guild’s board must be a brewery owner. Technically, seeing as there has yet to be a final disposition of my ownership shares in NABC, I might choose to continue as a guild director until the buyout is resolved.

However, with the number of breweries in Indiana now topping 120, it’s a good time for me to say goodbye. New (and hopefully younger) blood can come aboard and begin learning how things work, because there’s much work to be done.

Whether guild, business or career, stepping aside is the right thing for me to do. It isn’t easy. Reinvention is necessary, and it’s also a bear, especially the methodical process of stripping away these comfortable layers of self-identity. It’s natural to swaddle yourself with layers of familiarity. Without their protection, suddenly you feel naked and vulnerable.

Does one even have value without them? Do I?

Yet, in some ways, it’s also like shedding scar tissue or waking from a coma. Gradually, interests and inclinations buried for a quarter-century beneath the rote daily checklist of business as usual are re-emerging, stumbling dazed from exile, blinking at the revealing light.

I’ll miss the Wednesdays in Indianapolis, except at some point I won’t. There’ll always be the option of driving up and wandering the city – or spending time in Columbus, Evansville or Needmore (home of Salt Creek). Plenty of quality time remains. Life is good.

It was a hell of a guild ride, boys and girls.

Someone keep throwing punches on my behalf, will you?

---

Recent columns:

January 28: ON THE AVENUES: They're surely not ROLL models.

January 21: ON THE AVENUES: When I grow up, I'd like to be alive.

January 14: ON THE AVENUES: Should the Queen fail to rescue us, there's always H. L. Mencken.

January 7: ON THE AVENUES: You know, that time when Roger interviewed himself.

December 31: ON THE AVENUES: My 2015 in books and reading.

Another street grid lesson for Jeff Gahan to ignore.

In a nutshell: Slowed speeds, improved walker safety, better access for drivers. Succinct, to the point -- and utterly beyond Team Gahan's stunted suburban-think.

New York Street to open to two-way traffic through IUPUI on Monday (Indianapolis Business Journal)

Vehicles will be able to start driving west on New York Street through the IUPUI campus starting late Monday afternoon as the city opens the thoroughfare to two-way traffic ...

 ... "This project represents a long collaboration between major community stakeholders including IUPUI, the hospitals and our west-side neighborhoods," said Melody Park, the public works department’s chief engineer, in a statement. "This project will both increase the safety of students and pedestrians by calming traffic speeds along New York Street as well as allow motorists more direct access to their destinations on the university and hospital campuses."

"How our government helps investors profit from neighborhood decay."

Wow.

Investigative journalism really does exist.

Blight Inc. -- How our government helps investors profit from neighborhood decay, by Brian Eason (Indy Star)

 ... The story of urban blight is all too familiar. Indianapolis is pockmarked with 6,800 abandoned homes that stunt property values, attract crime and destabilize neighborhoods. But one of the primary causes is mostly hidden. And it is, in large part, enabled by our own government.

An Indianapolis Star investigation has found that, increasingly, the empty house next door is not owned by a bank or an individual, but by one of many investors, often from out of state, who are enticed by the prospects of cheap homes that can be purchased — sight unseen and in bulk — at government tax sales.

"Why Indianapolis is a test case for a fairer form of gentrification."

That word again -- not gentrification, but "fairer." It isn't always used in this context.

Why Indianapolis is a test case for a fairer form of gentrification, by Cara Courage (The Guardian)

“I helped change one neighbourhood into a hipster place, and then we got priced out of there.” Artist Jim Walker is describing the shift in fortunes of the Fountain Square district of Indianapolis, where his Big Car arts collective was born a decade ago – and of the artists and residents who have been forced to move on by the neighbourhood’s gentrification.

Walker’s experience is an increasingly familiar story in cities around the world – a tale of urban pioneers who play a central role in the redevelopment of a downtown area, only to find themselves unable to afford to stay there. Is there a more equitable way? That’s just what Walker is trying to find out with his latest arts-led Indianapolis project.

The twist is a "land trust."

While some lower-rent properties are still available in Fountain Square, the change led Walker to look at other areas in the city that could offer the vacant space Big Car’s operation requires. But this time, Walker wanted to do it differently – pushing for a model of regeneration that places the arts in control of the development process; a model that keeps artists and locals at the centre of the change, and should prevent residents from getting priced out.

His Big Car collective is now busy in Garfield Park, a disinvested area on the south side of Indianapolis, having located a new home on one of the city’s arterial routes, Shelby Street, which is lined by a small parade of service stores, a secondhand bookshop and a cafe.

Thanks to city government and philanthropic help as well as its own funds, Big Car has bought a “land trust”, as Walker calls it, “for the artists working hard with neighbours to improve the area”. The development includes two former factories now repurposed as studios, exhibition and performance spaces, and the Listen Hear sound-art gallery and radio station – located in what used to be a laundromat. Vacant houses are being renovated into affordable homes for artists; Big Car is also a key partner in a community-led safer streets programme, and in talks to bring Indianapolis’s rapid transit to the area.

This week's beer column: "Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session."

To be perfectly honest, given the juncture of RFRA and the NCAA Final Four, the prospect of an April Fool's Day spent in the state capital of Indianapolis sounds a bit too much like the plot of a bizarre, parallel-world sequel to Groundhog Day.

But there I'll be, leaving shortly, presumably to pop into a legislative session about HB 1311 (this year's "beer bill"), and then to attend a regular meeting of the Brewers of Indiana Guild's board, upon which I sit as a director.

Yay -- no passenger rail transport to Indy! It sounds almost like an issue of interest to legislators, if they can be bothered to refrain from damaging Indiana business.

In case you have not seen it, here's the link to my weekly beer column, as published on Monday. It's what I expect to be doing today.

The PC: Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session.

You won’t need to look far amid my scribblings to locate frequent praise for the Indiana “craft” brewing scene. I’m proud of my state when it comes to better beer.

In five years since 2010, we’ve come close to tripling the number of Hoosier breweries, and while it seems a new establishment opens in Indianapolis every week, smaller communities from Aurora to Martinsville to Needmore are being represented, too. It’s overdue, and welcomed.

This Wednesday, I’ll make the drive up I-65 to Indianapolis for a regular board meeting of the Brewers of Indiana Guild (BIG). It isn’t an ordinary week in the state capital. For one, college basketball’s Final Four will be staged there beginning on Saturday, with all attendant sports-driven hoopla. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that just last week, my state made international headlines with a controversial new law, overwhelmingly approved by both legislative bodies and promptly signed by Governor Mike Pence. Because of SB/HB 101, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), there are mounting calls to boycott Indiana.

Some, including Keith Olbermann, Charles Barkley and Dave Zirin, have gone so far as to urge the NCAA, which is headquartered in Indianapolis, to move the Final Four elsewhere in protest. This is unlikely, but the NCAA has indicated its displeasure, meaning Indiana might be denied future athletic spectacles. That’s bad for all our bottom lines, beer or not.

Indy Star, Ballard speaking clearly: "Gov. Pence, fix 'religious freedom' law now."

Amid principled calls for the NCAA's Final Four to be moved from Indianapolis in protest of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the city's Republican mayor is not mincing words.

Mayor Ballard: RFRA will not define Indianapolis (WISH TV)

Ballard said he is signing an executive order that will require anyone doing business with the city to abide by Indianapolis’ human rights ordinance.

Ballard also said the passing of RFRA will not define Indianapolis.

Perhaps New Albany's mayor will say something, at some point, perhaps after Mr. Disney says it's okay.

Meanwhile, the Indy Star -- not exactly a liberal bastion -- urges immediate passage of "a state law to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity."

In short: You Republicans who broke it, now go and fix it.

Editorial: Gov. Pence, fix 'religious freedom' law now

We are at a critical moment in Indiana's history.

And much is at stake.

Our image. Our reputation as a state that embraces people of diverse backgrounds and makes them feel welcome. And our efforts over many years to retool our economy, to attract talented workers and thriving businesses, and to improve the quality of life for millions of Hoosiers.

All of this is at risk because of a new law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that no matter its original intent already has done enormous harm to our state and potentially our economic future.

The consequences will only get worse if our state leaders delay in fixing the deep mess created.

Half steps will not be enough. Half steps will not undo the damage.

Only bold action — action that sends an unmistakable message to the world that our state will not tolerate discrimination against any of its citizens — will be enough to reverse the damage.

Gov. Mike Pence and the General Assembly need to enact a state law to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Olbermann: "Sports (and its consumer -- you) are unavoidably, inescapably and permanently political."

Olbermann's not alone. On Saturday, Dave Zirin published his version of the same argument.

Why the NCAA Should Move the Final Four Out of Indiana, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... If (NCAA President Mark) Emmert really wanted to make a statement, he’d move next week’s Final Four out of Indianapolis. Emmert could announce that they were moving the basketball semifinals and finals to Cincinnati, less than 100 miles from the locale, so anyone who had their plane tickets or driving plans set wouldn’t be egregiously inconvenienced. Play it at the University of Cincinnati—hell, play it at a Cincy YMCA—but just get it out of the clutches of Mike Pence.

As noted here, I view it as unlikely. But the reasoning is strong.

"Sunday Night Dinner in Indianapolis."

I trust, with plenty of growlers shortly to be emptied of Indiana-brewed beer.

Sunday Night Dinner in Indianapolis, by Aaron Renn (Urbanophile)

... Unlike New York, Indy has a far more robust social life in private spaces like houses and back yards. This produces a qualitatively different type of social capital, one with its own unique set of strengths.

One example of this is the emergence of community based Sunday dinners. This was an organic movement and as a result lacks a fancy name, but in keeping with the generally low key and unpretentious character of the city, let’s just call it Sunday Night Dinner ...

As new attitudes have fed the Indianapolis area's apartment boom, old attitudes doom New Albany's.

Here in New Albany, we spend much time over beer, coffee and various illicit pharmaceuticals discussing the perennial disconnect between theory and practice.

For instance, just about everyone taking a position on the future of downtown acknowledges that more people need to live there. Granted, our Slumlord Empowerment Districts (i.e., historic neighborhoods) lie only a short distance from downtown, but after a decade spent trying to make the point that ideas like walkability and complete streets apply to these neighborhoods just as much as free federal stabilization monies when it comes to effectively connecting them with downtown, the powers that be still look at messengers like us as though we were extras populating the cantina scene in Star Wars.

The only downtown housing solution ever advanced during the past decade of muddle was the catastrophic Mainland Properties proposal to use a $15 million parking garage as collateral to find the money its backers didn't possess, perhaps leading eventually to habitation at DC-level prices. Meanwhile, empty buildings still sit, unused and rotting, and there hasn't been a new building erected downtown since the Redmen's Club (later Steinert's) ... which remains vacant.

Perhaps, in the end, our perennial disconnect reflects our enduring contempt for education. If one persists in thinking that an empty-nester is someone who didn't get lucky last night at the Road House, and a millennial is a flower that returns to bloom each spring, then it's hard to picture this city ever turning the corner on downtown housing.

After all, valuable corners are meant to be sacrificed for a farmers market, not for thinking outside self-imposed boxes. And so we stumble, dully, into the future.

New attitudes have fed Indianapolis area's apartment boom, by Chris Sikich (Indy Star)

 ... Changing attitudes and lifestyles have boosted the apartment industry even as the new home market has emerged from the recession, said Drew Klacik, senior policy analyst at the Indiana University Public Policy Institute.

• Millennials, he said, are interested in living in an urban environment without the long-term binds of mortgages. Millennials are a key demographic, expected to grow from 36 percent of the workforce today to 50 percent by the end of the decade, according to Denver-based Progressive Urban Management Associates.

• Empty-nesters, he said, are ready to downsize and give up the maintenance headaches associated with home ownership. The first wave of baby boomers reached 65 in 2011, and the last will turn 65 in 2029.

"Millennials and empty-nesters want walkable new urban neighborhoods," Klacik said. "The stuff Carmel and Westfield are doing is a really big deal, and that really is the trend."

Just for Valentine's Day: "Indy's last pornographer can't capitalize on retro-raunch."

Searching online for coverage of yesterday's legislative hearing, I stumbled across this.

Arguably, it is the finest Valentine's Day feature in recent memory.

Indy's last pornographer can't capitalize on retro-raunch, by Will Higgins (IndyStar)

At 82, Rivoli operator recalls the "golden age" and the moral outrage that snuffed him out on Valentine's Day 1992

Valentine's Day is a sad reminder for a lot of people but especially for Charles R. Chulchian.

It was on Valentine's Day, 1992 that Chulchian was forced by the city of Indianapolis to shut down his business. He ran porno movies at the Rivoli Theater on East 10th Street. He had rock concerts there, too, occasionally, but his chief revenue source was dirty movies. He'd screened them since 1975, since the advent of the genre's so-called "golden age," when the films began to have actual story lines and their stars, like Linda Lovelace and John C. Holmes, came close to being mainstream celebrities.

Indy's Bush Stadium repurposed as lofts.

It's an imaginative reuse of the historic baseball park in Indianapolis. Compare the work-in-progress satellite view above to the completed exterior shot at the article.

Lofts give new life to historic Bush Stadium, by TJ Banes (Indy Star)

... (Geralyn) Strecker's living room is located behind home plate of historic Bush Stadium. Strecker, a self-proclaimed baseball fanatic, was the first resident to sign a lease in January for Stadium Lofts. The studio, one- and two-bedroom rental units at 1510 Stadium Way were filled by the time it opened July 27.

Now the former Indianapolis Indians stadium is growing with new life. In addition to the 138 lofts, Core Redevelopment will open 144 flats in August.

The Near-Westside complex has a rich history that dates to the stadium's opening in 1931.

Two-way streets: New Albany is worth it, in the neighborhoods AND downtown.

In the excerpt below, we see yet again that while it's easy to blithely toss around phrases like "quality of life," applying such values across a wider spectrum not exclusively defined by typically well-heeled, upper-strata, white-bread preconceptions can lead to befuddlement on the part of those unfamiliar with diverse considerations.

I've chosen lately to focus my limited time to advocating for two way streets from a standpoint of economic development for downtown New Albany's small, independent businesses -- the ones (like my own) that have invested heavily and borne the primary weight of revitalization, with little more than token support by successive administrations.

Although when it comes to infrastructure like streets and sidewalks ... never mind.

The neighborhood revitalization argument against one-way arterial speedways and in favor of two-way streets and accompanying traffic calming measures might be even stronger. By choice, I leave this point to others, but it is a very important plank in the platform. As with downtown businesses, it is critical that the neighborhoods offer tangible evidence of residents in support of a reclaimed street grid, alongside the single most important necessity of all: Two-way street advocates in New Albany vote.

In New Albany, electoral timidity is driving governmental sloth, plain and simple. I'm doing what I can to provide an opposing viewpoint. Join me.

Erika D. Smith: The road to better neighborhoods goes two ways, at the Indy Star

Every morning for 15 years, Elease Womack and David Metzger watched commuters in imposing SUVs and sleek sedans speed past The Unleavened Bread Cafe with barely an upward glance.

That’s what happens when you have a business on a one-way street in a not-so-great neighborhood.

“People couldn’t wait for the stoplight to change and shoot on through to Downtown,” said Metzger, the cafe’s unofficial co-founder.

But that was then. This is now.

Earlier this year, Indianapolis converted one-way Central Avenue into a two-way street between Fall Creek Parkway and East 38th Street. The effect was immediate. Cars that used to fly by the cafe at the corner of Central and East 30th Street now merely cruise past. Nowadays, people look, stop and linger. The entire neighborhood has changed.

“The way in which people look over here — even at the stoplight — is different now than when it was one way,” Metzger said. “It’s more neighborly than it has ever been.”

It’s not just Central, though. Indianapolis has been slowly rethinking the one-way thoroughfare model ...