Thanks to Padgett, a halfway house will front a two-way street. When it comes to social justice, ya gotta start SOMEWHERE.

If it weren't for a citywide irony so pervasive that it flies at 30,000 feet, over the heads of everyone involved, then those stopped clocks registering the right time twice each day wouldn't be so enduringly entertaining.

Padgett family offers to help start New Albany halfway house; 1514 E. Spring St. home will be purchased if the city approves, by Danielle Grady (Hanson Obliviousness Modulator)

NEW ALBANY — Thanks to a charitable business family, plans to build a halfway house for women in New Albany are back on.

Pending city approval, the family that owns Padgett, Inc., will purchase 1514 E. Spring St. to transform into Nicole’s Place, a home for women recovering from addiction.

But let's not be churlish. This stands to be a good use for the space, and kudos to Padgett for its social consciousness. Perhaps in addition to "God working behind the scenes" (as a predictably trite quote in the article suggests), either He or Padgett finally will get behind the house, a part of the building never entirely completed during its previous remodeling roughly 10 years ago (photos from the summer of 2016).

As an aside, am I the only one who believes that the renowned law firm of Greg & Greg will bring the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association to bear against such a use for this house? 

Lisa Livingston is the local woman behind Nicole’s Place. A graduate of a similar program in Jeffersonville, Livingston originally planned to open Nicole’s Place at 2106 E. Elm St. in New Albany, but the city plan commission voted to deny her the special exception she needed to start it.

The plan commission worried that Elm Street was too residential for Nicole’s Place.

Livingston needs another special exception to open Nicole’s Place on Spring Street, but the neighborhood contains a mix of residences and businesses.

She plans to bring her proposal for Nicole’s Place to the plan commission’s March meeting. It will need to be approved by both the plan commission and, later, the board of zoning appeals.

Livingston was disappointed by the plan commission’s original decision to deny her a special exception, but was determined to find another place.

Still, she wasn’t expecting it when Jimmy Padgett, the vice president of Padgett, Inc., contacted her and asked for a meeting.

The Padgett’s are concerned about the drug epidemic in the United States, according to a release from Padgett, Inc.

“The Padgett family feels strongly that people who are trying to fix their problems should be assisted in every way possible,” said Jimmy in a statement. “Addiction is a disease. The people with this disease need compassion, the same as people with any debilitating disease. They cannot be held responsible for their disease but they must be held responsible for their sobriety. It is incumbent upon everyone to help people who are providing solutions that can transition those seeking sobriety back to being productive citizens, and that is the mission of Nicole’s [Place].”

The Padgett family will purchase the property on Spring Street for Livingston after the planning and zoning department approves her plans. They’ll lease it to Nicole’s Place with the goal of the halfway house purchasing the home from the Padgett’s within 18 months with grant dollars and other donations. The Padgett’s will also provide a donation to Nicole’s Place.

Jimmy met with Livingston and the director of Nicole’s Place before deciding to help. He wanted to make sure Livingston had a good plan, she said.

Nicole’s Place will be based off of the Bliss House in Jeffersonville, where Livingston used to live.

Residents at the Bliss House must call and ask for a spot for 30 consecutive days before being accepted into the program. They must also be clean and sober 30 days prior to their placement there, and after placement, must pay $100 a week in rent for their recovery courses, meals and access to the Internet and other services.

The Bliss House also has a zero tolerance drug use police and a no male-contact rule.

Nicole’s Place already has a board of directors, which includes people who have worked with the Bliss House in the past, one of whom was a former director.

There will be parking lot behind Nicole’s Place and residents will always be supervised by staff while on the property.

The Padgett Inc. release said that the Padgett family is aware that many people are opposed to places like Nicole’s Place because they don’t want people with drug problems living near them.

“However, the reality is we are surrounded by people with drug problems everywhere: at the grocery store, work, social events and walking or driving down the street,” the release said.

Livingston said she’s overwhelmed by Jimmy’s contribution to Nicole’s Place.

“I had heard about people like him, but I’ve never met any,” she said.

Livingston said that Greg Henderzahs, the executive director for the Center of Lay Ministries, which runs Bliss House, expressed surprise at the Padgett’s help with Nicole’s Place.

“[Henderzahs] said things like this just don’t happen,” Livingston said. “This is definitely God working behind the scenes.”

Jimmy wasn’t the only person that reached out to Livingston after the News and Tribune published two articles about Nicole’s Place in November.

Livingston thinks that’s because the motives of those behind Nicole’s Place are pure.

“We aren’t going for financial gain,” she said. “It’s all about helping. And Floyd County is in dire need.”

Livingston said she hopes to start moving women into Nicole’s Place by April if the halfway house is approved by New Albany in March. About six women would live in Nicole’s Place at first, but the Spring Street house could potentially hold 25.

Actually, 8.5 feet wide is the federal standard for commercial vehicles.

(thanks W)

As we inch toward the Speck plan's public meeting finale on Wednesday at the Pepin Mansion ((March 18, 6:00 p.m., 1003 E. Main Street), perennial civic value extractors in the trucking and heavy equipment business, and their convenient politically motivated apologists like Irv Stumler and Dan Coffey, continue to press the point that their narrow interests must trump all other considerations.

James Padgett's infamous newspaper missive remains an instructive example of a random argument generator, into which is fed various fears and innuendo, and even the stray good point, in the creation of a grandiose mash-up with the superficial appearance of credibility.

However, just because intellectually lazy newspaper editors adoringly fall for it doesn't mean the rest of us should. As a friend points out ...

The Padgett comments were classic misdirection - meant to confuse the folks who don't pay attention to facts. When people use wrong "facts" as a way to claim they aren't lying in a dishonest debate - it's just wrong.

So true, as in the case of lane widths. We already know that a 12' - 13' wide lane width isn't necessary to accommodate a Honda Accord -- one of the best selling cars in America at 6' 7" wide.

You don't need 'em for trucks, either.

WIDTH REQUIREMENTS

U.S. Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration

The maximum width limit for CMVs on the NN and reasonable access routes was originally established at 102 inches, except for Hawaii where it is 2.74 m (108 inches). (See discussion of Reasonable Access on page 12.) To standardize vehicle width on an international basis, the 102-inch width limit was interpreted to mean the same as its approximate metric equivalent, 2.6 meters (102.36 inches) (Figure 1 above).

Here is Spring Street as Rosenbargered today.

And here is a quick capture of Speck's planned refit for the same stretch of street.

See a median anywhere in there?

That's what I thought. When it comes to reading comprehension, New Albany remains the land that time forgot.

Letter to the newspaper: "I must disagree with (Padgett's) interpretation of safety as it relates to East Spring Street."

This letter to the newspaper from William J. Transue is a reminder that Bill has been in the front lines of the fight for rationalizing neighborhood street grid ever since he invested in New Albany.

Verily, folks like Bill inspired me to invest in a Bushnell Velocity Speed Gun. There's nothing quite like facts, eh?

Reader comments on street grid

This is in response to a recent column in the News and Tribune written by Mr. R James Padgett.

Though I agree with Mr. Padgett as it relates to the debacle on East Main Street, I must disagree with his interpretation of safety as it relates to East Spring Street. The cure for the speeding problems is not the addition of a traffic light at 11th and Spring. There is a traffic light at 15th and Spring and all it does is stop the traffic, which doesn’t truly control speeding because people only accelerate to higher speed until they get to the light at Seventh Street and after to Bank Street, speeding isn’t a downtown problem, it is a midtown problem from Fourth Street to Vincennes.

Mr. Padgett didn’t mention a cure for East Elm Street, which as you know is a major portal into the city from the Sherman Minton Bridge that is going to see an increase in traffic — and speeders — after the Ohio River Bridges Project is complete.

Padgett Inc. appeals for National Guard deployment to maintain civil trucking rights.

Padgett Inc. owner R. James Padgett thinks he has a very strong case against street reform in downtown New Albany, so he’s taking his brief to US Representative Todd Young.

“Obviously, we’re being singled out for discriminatory treatment by Jeff Gahan, Jeff Speck, and probably a few other Jeffs who haven’t occurred to me yet,” said Padgett as he prepared to jump seat an 18-wheeler to meet Rep. Young at a truck stop near Seymour. “It’s like we’re an endangered species.”

Padgett says it’s time for a change.

“As a Republican, I’m completely opposed to federal intervention in local matters, but I’ve given a lot of money to Todd, so now’s the perfect time for me to demand federal intervention in local matters.”

He believes there’s an ideal mechanism to keep New Albany firmly mired in the transport mentality of the one-way 1960s.

“Naturally I’ll make a substantial campaign donation first, but what Todd’s going to do is transform downtown New Albany into a National Wildlife Refuge, so we can restore the natural habitat.”

“You know, Save the Cranes, right? Those beautiful wild creatures need to roam free in their natural habitat of destitution and despair -- we can make it happen again, right? I mean, it’s really good for tourism and shit."

"Just think of the photography licensing fees.”

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: Full Frontal Goebbels erupts as Padgett looks at New Albany as a hole.

(thanks, CA and AG)

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: Full Frontal Goebbels erupts as Padgett looks at New Albany as a hole.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: Full Frontal Goebbels erupts as Padgett looks at New Albany as a hole.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

To be sure, attempted expository writing commencing with heartfelt thanks for the “fair and balanced” pandering of the News and Tribune’s forever oblivious Chris Morris generally is destined for the ground floor of the parakeet’s cage faster than Dan Coffey can switch sides, but because City Hall’s in hiding, and I couldn’t pawn the job off on the assistant editor, permit me to show you this nifty postcard.

It was the last remaining item on closeout at Endris Jewelers.

Thanks AG

Then there’s this.

PADGETT: Look at New Albany as a whole, by R. James Padgett

 ... Safety must be paramount. Everything else is secondary

Trying to follow Padgett's reasoning is like watching a neophyte learning to drive a stick, but let's give the crane mogul his due, and acknowledge that while Padgett has only one, solitary, universally valid point, it is an entirely fair point.

Too bad it's on John Rosenbarger's head.

Yes, Rosenbarger's pate should have been adorned with a bonnet of pink slips long ago, and at least on that much we can agree, because Padgett gets this part of it right: The East Main Street Improvement Project is an abomination, a perfect storm of a travesty of everything wrong with street refits, a gift that keeps on shafting on, an unfathomable civic own goal, and such a thorough poisoning of the design well when it comes to inclusive, progressive street sense that you’d be mistaken for thinking it was the act of a crazed, sworn enemy ... not the city's favorite inept son of a Rasputin.

Unfortunately for Padgett's current self-centered jihad against the city’s future, his one fair point has everything to do with the Main Street alone, and nothing whatever to do with Jeff Speck’s Downtown Street Network Proposals. For example, to my knowledge, not a single median is proposed within Speck's report, although he mentions the weirdness of the medians dividing Market Street downtown. Not a word in Speck's study is devoted to measures to prevent trucks from using New Albany's streets. His suggestions incorporate them within a broader context.

So, the first task for the reader of Padgett's rant to the News and Tribune is to realize that in terms of effective argumentation, fatally flawed premises cannot possibly lead to a correct conclusion. You’d sooner expect the muffler to rotate the drive shaft -- or something like that.

Padgett’s primary flawed argument, currently being borne by a conceptually unclothed Irv Stumler, is that because Main Street sucks, so do Speck's proposals. In his own words:

The problem was created because the Main Street changes were designed in a vacuum without analyzing their effect on other streets and businesses. And now, the City of New Albany is again proposing to do more of the same.

Padgett’s eagerness to conflate the two is his biggest lie, although he doesn't stop there. His secondary flawed argument, and his slightly smaller of lies, is that he alone possesses the key to “safety” on the streets, as based upon yet another shaky premise:

The streets exist for trucks. After that, we'll distribute sloppy seconds. 

This argument is egotistical, to say the least:

I decree that the Main Street project has created unsafe streets according to what trucks need, and will consider no evidence beyond that which I've provided., and so therefore what Speck proposes is unsafe according to what the trucking community needs, because those needs come first, and street safety pertains only to the relationship between trucks and the detestable remainder of the non-trucking human population, because I said so, and I’m Jim Padgett, gazing at my reflection in a serene pool of industrial badassedness. 

Let’s let Bluegill address this one.

The funny thing is that Padgett tries to pitch street reform and anybody but him as being responsible for danger. Somehow I don't think my bicycle imposes as much risk on the folks in my neighborhood as several thousand pounds of steel and drivers that apparently can't drive in a slow, straight line. There's a concept of proportionality at play here. He or she who creates the most risk also incurs the most responsibility.

As for Padgett’s labored renderings of truck safety issues on Main Street, our friend Iamhoosier has a few rejoinders.

If a semi driver cannot drive down a 13' wide street safely, he/she needs to have their license rescinded. Oversized loads are called that for a reason -- they are oversized. They still move. It takes a little more time and effort but they still get where they are going. And how many legit oversized loads are moved through NA in an average week? (my company makes deliveries every day with semis, so I know a little about this topic, too) Padgett is complaining about 13'. An interstate highway lane can be as narrow as 12'. His argument is hogwash. I'm sure there are times that an accommodation will have to made to move some of Padgett's products. I don't think anyone objects to that.

Interestingly, Padgett freely acknowledges that Main Street remains the “only legal travel route” for large vehicles and oversize loads. Apparently he does not contest this, so we’ll accept it, too, seeing as we've been saying it for many months.

As noted, Padgett is able to supply several disingenuous scenarios explaining why Main Street’s changes “have created dangerous travel,” but according to Padgett, short of removing the medians and starting over, the only solution is for the city to designate “another wide, clear and unobstructed travel street” for the use of his trucks, and the trucks of others. From this, we can infer that such a re-designation has not yet been established.

So … if by Padgett’s own admission, recent changes to Main Street may (or may not – do we have corroborating testimony?) be dangerous, but among these have NOT been any explicit changes to the street’s status as sole legal travel route, then how could I have seen this Padgett truck on Spring Street earlier in the week?

The sign even says “oversize load,” right?

Recalling that city officials and Wes Christmas, its Main Street project engineer, have insisted all along that changes there would not divert truck traffic elsewhere, and with Padgett himself in agreement that Main Street remains the only legal travel street, why are his trucks (and others) traveling on Spring Street at all?

Why haven’t these truckers been ticketed?

Is Padgett serving notice of overt civil disobedience?

Is he ordering them to avoid the only legal travel route?

Shouldn’t someone’s wrist be getting slapped?

As we’ve asked countless times, if Main Street remains the designated truck route even after the installation of garish medians, then why is the city not ticketing trucks for the very act of being on Spring Street? At the very least, why aren’t they being issued warnings?

Looking at Padgett's argumentation as a whole, it's filled with holes, and his me-first narcissism is way off the charts. However, and undeniably, we’re only at this idiotic, bile-ridden juncture because of the astounding wretchedness of Jeff Gahan’s and John Rosenbarger's massive Main Street boondoggle. Both should be cashiered, and as soon as humanly possible.

Meanwhile, one more time so Jim Padgett can hear it over the din of his fleet ...

Speck ain't Main Street, not by a long shot. To suggest otherwise is a lie, period.

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Recent ON THE AVENUES columns:

ON THE AVENUES: Die Hard the Hunter, or the political impossibility of rental property registration on New Albany.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: Adam's rib tips.

ON THE AVENUES: It's just like when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

ON THE AVENUES: As Admiral Gahan steers his Speck study into the Bermuda Triangle, crewmen Padgett, Stumler and Caesar grimly toss all the rum overboard.