ON THE AVENUES: Pretty in pink slips, aren’t they? Those who mutilated Speck need to be cashiered.

Yes, it's true that I've been indulging in reruns, but hear me out.

For the past two weeks I've been using all my spare moments to go swimming in the rank, toxic, soul-crushing sewer otherwise known as Mayor Jeff Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports.

Y'all know I'm a hardcore cynic -- and the pay-to-play is worse than even I thought.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 5: In 2019, Gahan will pass the half million dollar mark in campaign fundraising since 2011.

There's another reason for dipping into the archive.

Many readers weren't with us back when a column like today's was first published (January 8, 2015). At the time, consultant Jeff Speck's draft report about the two-way future of the street grid had only just appeared.

It took another two years for Gahan to commission the ever servile HWC Engineering to butcher Speck's overall perspective, stuff the remnants into sausage casings, spread the largess among the usual suspects, and declare victory.

In short, Gahan gleefully botched the street grid modernization as trucking special interests applauded and the mayor's sticky sycophants sagely nodded -- among them the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association, the brain trust of which concluded with all due terror that "modernization" was far too dangerous a concept to risk in New Albany.

ESNA was catastrophically wrong, and its timidity was both short-sighted and unforgivable. Now Greg Phipps wants four more years as councilman because he's not finished yet -- doing the mayor's daily bidding, that is. We need a principled, independent choice in the third district, don't we?

As for Gahan's trashing of Speck, you can't say I didn't predict it. Read on, and don't forget to vote these under-achievers out of office as soon as you have the chance.

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ON THE AVENUES: Pretty in pink slips, aren’t they?

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

On Tuesday, the very morning when City Hall at long last hazarded a first halting, wheezing, asthmatic step toward taking proper possession of Jeff Speck’s seminal street study, it was disturbingly sunny outside.

Now, I’m so old I can remember when Speck was Jeff Gahan’s Big Idea, prompting his very own commissioned mayoral study, at least right up until that fateful moment when the Tiger Trucking semi rig’s headlights froze Hizzoner dead in his tracks, at river’s edge, like a bedraggled, matted raccoon without a paddle, stuck in the middle of an arterial one-way Highway to Birdseye.

Where was I?

Oh, yes: It was sunny outside.

I muttered a choice epithet and spat as I walked downtown, past the doomed urban corner where a quarter million is about to be squandered to permanently anchor a temporary seasonal farmers market on one of the city’s hottest future infill parcels.

Damn. It really needed to be cloudy outside on this, our auspicious Speck Study Day.

After all, if Mayor Gahan (or more likely, the hardest working hologram in Indiana municipal governance) were to surface from Das Subterranean Command Bunker on Speck Study Day, only to see the sun actually shining, we’d be condemned to eight more years of foot-dragging, feeble excuses and DemoDisneyDixecrat appeasement, with little hope of street grid reformatting taking place in our lifetimes.

However, and we can only hope fortuitously, agoraphobia is the cruelest of mistresses. Mayor Gahan sent the city engineer, Larry Summers, to the Bored of Works in his stead, and poor Larry was far too nervous performing his assigned task of explaining how something and nothing can occur simultaneously to notice the prevailing atmospheric conditions.

Tinkerbell Dickey was there, too, but the Democratic major domo was preoccupied with feverishly emitting ear-lobe-tugging, nose-scratching procedural signals to the BOW chairman Nash, who gazed in bewilderment at the Power Point slides:

“Wow, Larry, you mean a road diet isn’t a Disney theme park ride?

"Why, this is the space age!

"Next thing you know, they’ll have color TVs playing at the Waffle House.”

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Unsurprisingly, those of us most thrilled by the comprehensive efficiency and vigorous optimism of Jeff Speck’s Downtown Street Network Proposal are just as dour and pessimistic about the chances of it ever being carried out hereabouts in any substantive fashion.

That’s because in Come to City, we’ve never really come to, and what’s Groundhog Day, anyway? In New Albany, it’s just another word for tomorrow, and the day after that, and …

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In 1989, several previous fallen dominoes (Solidarity’s election victory in Poland and the partial opening of the Austro-Hungarian border, to name just two) culminated with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The USSR stood aside, and the Warsaw Pact was no more.

The subsequent experiences of these East Bloc nations varied, but to some extent in all of them, surely more so in Romania and Bulgaria, the period of post-Communism possessed a decided aura of déjà vu, because there, in the seats of power, occupying elected as well as appointed offices, sat the very same functionaries as before.

Rather like a species of rapidly evolving insect (remember, Franz Kafka was Czech), they either chose the proper moment to switch sides just prior to the outbreak of revolution, or merely shifted into a dormant stage of Down-Low to wait out the post-crash euphoria, reasoning that in the cold light of day, their bureaucratic skills would be deemed essential, and their previous careers worthy of selective forgetfulness.

In this context of adaptability, formerly Communist officials in newly democratic Eastern Europe drew upon an irrefutable pedigree, because after all, denazification in Germany following World War II proved to be schnauzer that simply wouldn’t hunt. Apart from a low percentage of high-profile examples, numerous adherents of the “Heil Hitler” persuasion made a seamless transition from discredited losers to irreplaceable stalwarts of the new/old system now harnessed to a different master, whether West or East.

Why mention Europe’s 20th-century totalitarian hangovers?

It’s because Speck’s street study is more revolutionary than all the (Groucho) Marxists and (John) Lennonists combined, meaning the chances of its implementation in the Land of C and D Students is embarrassingly slight.

But what if a miracle occurs?

What if Speck Happens?

Maybe Tricky Dickey was right all along, and all it takes is faith, and a little bit of pixie dust, and BOOM – Speck in our time!

The good guys win, the city’s future brightens … prosperous times are around the corner, with Tippecanoe and Walkability Too … get out those bikes, people, and skates, and … hold on.

Just wait. It couldn’t be, could it?

Those guys with the clipboards, managing the Five Year Speck Conversion Plan, working for the New Boss … OMG, say it ain’t so.

Not him.

Anyone but him.

---

That’s right. You guessed it. Even in the very rosiest of street scenarios, which most of us reckon might – just might – yield a Speck Study Quotient conversion rate of 15%, quite likely we’ll be asked to accept a state of affairs wherein the same street-disfigurement criminals wreaking havoc all along are magically transformed into courageous reformers.

We’ll be asked to believe that zebras can shed their stripes, as they set out at the usual bloated pay scale to dismantle the very same dysfunctional one-way, auto-centric edifice they spent the previous three decades perfecting, the sheer idiocy of which comprised the fundamental cause for the revolution in the first place.

Specifically, if John Rosenbarger has anything to do with the implementation of the Speck plan, which clearly calls for ridding the landscape of previous masterworks undertaken at Rosenbarger’s dull instigation, like the rock-strewn bump-outs on State Street, then we’ll have final, irrefutable proof of New Albany as default Groundhog Day, every day, forever.

Wonderful. Rosenbarger and his compatriots, some departed, and others still secured within the Third Floor woodwork like termite larva, built a street grid that Speck’s study relentlessly, mercilessly eviscerates – block by block, and lane width by asphalt expanse. Now, he’ll fix it.

Not only is it bullshit, but it’s also unconscionable, absurd and intolerable. In New Albany, these four words are considered synonyms for “bound to happen” – again, and again, and again.

Good grief, people.

Just during the brief period of the Speck study’s gestation in 2014, Rosenbarger merrily shepherded our Main Street equivalent of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s destructive pre-1989 boulevards and palaces chaos in Bucharest, placing a colossal raspberry of damp flatulence on the street grid he has had such a prominent hand in pillaging over 30 long, wasted, impotent years.

Imagining him at the triumphant Speck photo op, equipped with kiddie hardhat and requisite rubber shovel, those glow-in-the-dark reddened eyes leering, makes me reach for my garlic cloves and nice, sharp, wooden stakes. Ceaușescu wasn’t the only vampire on his Romanian bloc, you know.

Yet, in the end, there is very good news … and also very bad news.

The good news is that Rosenbarger probably will have no part whatever in implementing the Speck study in New Albany.

The bad news?

There’ll probably be no implementation of street modernity in New Albany.

Once upon a time, Speck was to have been Gahan’s Big Idea, but now the odds makers are unanimous, and persuasive: All we get is this lousy Potemkin Village – Hooterville and Caesartown, and again tomorrow, and the day after that, and …

Wouldn’t it be nice, just for once, to escape the recurring cycle of stupid?

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Recent columns:

February 22: ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL: Take your cult of personality and shove it, Dear Leader.

February 19: ON THE AVENUES: I'd stop drinking, but I'm no quitter (the 2019 Gravity Head remix).

February 12: ON THE AVENUES: If it's about learning and knowledge, then by definition it's a Gahan Free Zone. You're welcome.

February 5: ON THE AVENUES: Our mayor hates non-elected boards -- except when they're his own, which is why "hypocrisy" is spelled G-A-H-A-N.

January 29: ON THE AVENUES: How has the 3rd district councilman fared since this question from 2015: "Et tu, Greg Phipps?"

A metaphorical tale of compassion, honesty and integrity in photos, thus updating the East Main Street Improvement Project.

It's how the circle of nourishment works. Go here for more on this topic.

Since 2013 (and before), the Mt. Tabor Road beak-wetting boondoggle is a large millstone hung around Jeff Gahan's neck. Mayor overboard?

It's important to remember that Jeff Gahan did not become mayor until January 1, 2012. Before this, he served two terms as councilman for the 6th district, which includes the Mt. Tabor Road neighborhood referenced here.

In short, given the time generally required to mint and plan such big ticket roadwork boondoggles as the absurdly tagged "Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project" (and I'm the one who uses too many words?), it obviously dates back into Gahan's council tenure.

By extension, given the ill-tempered stubbornness for which the mayor is renowned as far away as Bob Hall, it's equally evident that having spent a half-dozen or more years conjuring this asphalt-laden, traffic-speed-enhancing "gift" to the peasants, he's absolutely determined to ram the daintily wrapped arterial down their ungrateful throats, come what may.

In this context, Gahan's perennial joy in campaign finance enrichment -- no unwetted beaks left behind in New Gahania -- actually runs a poor second to the unfettered expanse of his ego. At NA Confidential, the story began in 2013. The following links are chronological, from oldest to newest.

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October 19, 2013

The city is thinking about doing road shit. Really. It says so, over there behind that wall.

Duggins said that anything you've heard about the Slate Run Road, Mount Tabor Road and Captain Frank Road projects is true, unless it isn't. All are being contemplated, unless they aren't. The mayor will consider modifications, unless he won't. The usual suspects from Pool "A" will design these projects and build them, unless other usual suspects from Pool "B" are chosen instead. To reveal more would mean having to kill us all, and the street department can't manage such a clean-up.

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November 5, 2013

Council meeting: Mt. Tabor residents advocate for two-way streets ... sort of.

The city's proposed changes would make the road in front of them more likely to be driven by a greater number of cars, and at a rate faster than before, a situation of induced demand likely to be taken advantage of by outsiders with no better reason than passing through because they can, thus rendering the corridor less safe for neighborhood residents ... and yes, that's right, creating a scene designed to negatively impact their quality of life.

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December 26, 2013

ON THE AVENUES: Roundabouts make the politicians really ring.

Roundabouts are not intrinsically evil, but the Mt. Tabor Road residents looked past the surface dollar sheen and got to the heart of the matter: Roadway engineers would be altering conditions to suit the maxim of moving traffic through their neighborhood as “efficiently” as possible, and by doing so, would be reducing their quality of life in an almost mathematical, commensurate ratio.

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December 27, 2013

The Great Roundabout Turnabout of 2013 and pedestrian friendliness.

In the newspaperman Suddeath's piece, city hall floats the notion that the Mt. Tabor roundabout was pulled because it abruptly became evident that it would not be "pedestrian friendly." Speaking personally, I believe this to be a red herring the approximate stature of the Elsby Building ... BUT if the Gahan administration wishes to stick to the walkability argument, I'm fully in favor of accepting it.

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January 9, 2014

On the Rosenbarger planning conundrum, and FAN Fair, here I come.

Much like the sacrifice of Mount Tabor residential areas for poorly developed commercial strips on its fringes, the sacrifice of Spring and other nearby streets for Main has long been a part of the plan.

Rosenbarger's dismal performance at FAN Fair deserves another look, here.

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July 23, 2016

Council frivolity, slice of the second part: "Gahan Cares More About Concrete Than People."

John Rosenbarger sat at his desk. Outside his door, the clamor of the peasantry could be heard amid the clatter of pitchforks. He spat, then threw back his last shot of fiery sarsaparilla.

“The grandeur of my physique, the complexity of my worldview, the decency and taste implicit in my carriage, the grace with which I function in the mire of today’s world – all of these at once confuse and astound the buffoons at Mt. Tabor and Klerner Lane."

Rosenbarger gazed at his reflection in the framed portrait of Robert Moses.

"But Jeffie's got my back, bro."

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August 2, 2016

The city's spin doctors have outdone themselves on this one: Meet the "Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project."

It's simply amazing what vocal citizen opposition to a New and Improved Round O' Rosenbarger Cream Tort will do to bring David Duggins bounding full Sellersburg up the stairs from the Down Low Bunker to inform city council that with construction work about to start, now's the time for operatives to fan out through the neighborhood to alter misconceptions -- but not only that, there'll be a post-decision public meeting on August 22 to further encourage conformity.

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August 4, 2016

Chronicles of New Gahania: Mt. Tabor Road residents form civil defense squad to guard against John Rosenbarger.

Decades of poor planning and development decisions on New Albany's outskirts have created automobile traffic and drainage problems where there were none. Now, the City says that by redesigning the road for more cars going even faster, they're improving pedestrian safety and by substantially increasing the amount of impermeable surface area they're improving drainage. If any of our city planners or engineers had an ounce of intellectual and professional integrity, they'd speak up in opposition. That's pretty much a guarantee they won't. A decent mayor, should we ever get one, will fire all of them.

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August 4, 2016

ON THE AVENUES: Federal funding mechanisms total eighty percent. The other half is unalloyed political malice.

Clark County resident David Duggins duly was dispatched to spray gasoline on the brush fire, which he accomplished with his usual aplomb by threatening to send the Rasputin of Redevelopment and other city officials into the afflicted neighborhoods to knock on doors and remedy "misperceptions", which immediately sent panicked refugees streaming toward Silver Creek, into the newspaper’s Clark County coverage area.

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August 6, 2016

Look at Gahan hide, hide. Not to worry, because John "Human Shield" Rosenbarger is standing by, eager to obfuscate.

In other news, it took a long while, but the intentionally understaffed Jeffersonville-based "community" newspaper has clanked ineffectually into gear, producing drab content, but inadvertently shining a tepid light on the Gahan regime's boilerplate, namely that the mayor himself won't personally be touching this one.

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August 20, 2016

Stop me if you've heard this one before, Mt. Taborites: "They’re looking at it as more of an arterial road to move traffic though than a quality of living project."

I can't agree with all the objections voiced by the Mt. Tabor Road residents, but from the very beginning, they've grasped an essential point, because the "project" has been one designed to make the road usable by an increased number of cars, and an increased number of cars means a decreased quality of life.

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August 22, 2016

Tonight at OLPH: Mt. Tabor Campaign Finance Restoration and Propaganda Safety Project spoonfeeding.

This evening, what's already been decided will be explained to you. You're feeling better already, right? Someone asked whether Mayor Gahan will be in attendance.

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August 29, 2016

An Orwellian wetting of beaks -- or, some thoughts about the Mt. Tabor arterial enfluffment and timbering project.

But you see, there's no way a euphemism like the Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project cannot happen, once the federal funds have been committed. If someone else pays, the money must be used, whether to grease an arterial or construct a subway to Xanadu. Beaks must be kept wet. This is the cycle of political life, and it need not be connected to master plans or larger truths. It simply is.

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December 21, 2016

Phipps, McLaughlin pleasure mayor, oppose Blair's 6th district stormwater impact efforts, but the investigative measure passes council anyway.

Representatives of the usual engineering suspects and a handful of civic appointees were on hand at the council meeting to reiterate the municipal party line: As it pertains to stormwater, those Mt. Tabor area residents who insist on trusting their own two eyes instead of the mayor's should be ignored, and The Plan allowed to proceed.

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March 22, 2017

Shane Gibson is unaccountable yet again as "City of New Albany Withholding Public Records in Mount Tabor Road Land Grab."

Following is a press release, courtesy of local businessman Colin Receveur. Municipal corporate counsel Shane Gibson's cavalier disregard for public information requests is legendary. I'm delighted to his snared in arrogance of his own making.

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March 24, 2017

'Bune snoozes and IL gets the scoop: "City of New Albany, residents head to court over road improvement project."

“From all the discussion on this subject over the past 4 years, it has become apparent that the only person supporting dual sidewalks at this location is the Mayor of New Albany,”

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March 26, 2017

Mt. Tabor Road euphemism project: If City Hall looks bad, that's only because it's doing the damage to itself.

It isn't just that those federal 80/20 construction grants are like crack. It's that to Team Gahan, openness is like Ebola.

At least this time Pinocchio felled his OWN tree.

He must have needed a quick fix in the absence of federal funding, and of course the Treeless Board will provide retroactive approval.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

Tonight at OLPH: Mt. Tabor Campaign Finance Restoration and Propaganda Safety Project spoonfeeding.

Don't forget tonight's latest spoonfeeding set piece in Team Gahan's ongoing crusade to delicately balance the needs of City Hall's propaganda directorate against the campaign monetization stemming from public works Federal roadway funding bonanzas.

A public project review and open house is set for Aug. 22, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 1752 Scheller Lane, New Albany, in the basement area. Representatives from the engineering consultants for the project, Beam, Longest, and Neff, along with city officials will be available to answer questions or concerns brought up by neighbors.

Isn't this the mayor's home field in Papist terms? Meanwhile, you can bet John Rosenbarger will be riding point tonight, so wear your best condescension-resistant fabrics.

But face it, you'd rather OLPH bear the clean-up responsibility than risk Rosenbarger dispensing unctuousness on your own front porch. Talk about a brown field.

This evening, what's already been decided will be explained to you. You're feeling better already, right? Someone asked whether Mayor Gahan will be in attendance.

Probably not. He's busy with the two-way street effort, you know.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, Mt. Taborites: "They’re looking at it as more of an arterial road to move traffic though than a quality of living project."

On Thursday, Blair and Knable decried the "open house" plan of operations for Monday's public spoon-feeding session, which strongly resembles the bridges junta's model from five years ago as well as Team Gahan's ongoing propensity to dispense the latest fait accompli (look it up, corporate attorney) as decided behind closed doors.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, Mt. Taborites: "They’re looking at it as more of an arterial road to move traffic though than a quality of living project."

Pants on fire: Yep, John Rosenbarger is quoted here.

At Thursday's council meeting, the depth of the rift between the 6th district's representative Scott Blair and the inhabitants of Jeff Gahan's Down Low Bunker was made open, evident, early and often.

CM Blair opened council comments with a fierce roundhouse directed at controller Linda Moeller, who was asked pointedly why the city hadn't yet gotten around to cutting a check for the homeless coalition, and whether the delays constitute blatant obstruction.

Given that city controllers tend to be political appointees with no real power, Blair's complaint must be viewed as aimed squarely at the absentee emperor himself, and no sooner had the ubiquitous mayoral flunky David Duggins bounded to the podium to proclaim "the check's in the mail" than Blair shifted the discussion to the project to make Mt. Tabor Road more auto-centric while pretending the millions have something to do with pedestrian safety -- a particular specialty of the regime.

Both Blair and council colleague Al Knable pointed to three major points that must be resolved before the euphemistically-styled "Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project" proceeds to shovel stage.

• ADA sidewalk concerns; in short, must there be a sidewalk on both sides of the street because ADA says so, or is a sidewalk on one side only sufficient?
• The ultimate disposition of the Mt. Tabor-Klerner intersection; the roundabout was removed because City Hall was scared, and a stop light slated to replace it, but residents have expressed a preference for the four-way stop to remain.
• Persistent stormwater abatement issues in the neighborhood. 

On Thursday, Blair and Knable decried the "open house" plan of operations for Monday's public spoon-feeding session, which strongly resembles the bridges junta's model from five years ago as well as Team Gahan's ongoing propensity to dispense the latest fait accompli (look it up, corporate attorney) as decided behind closed doors.

A public project review and open house is set for Aug. 22, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 1752 Scheller Lane, New Albany, in the basement area. Representatives from the engineering consultants for the project, Beam, Longest, and Neff, along with city officials will be available to answer questions or concerns brought up by neighbors.

Did you know that it's been three months since City Hall bothered to post a press release at its "breathlessly official information" web site? However, it has been only three weeks since this, so partial points will be awarded.

Meanwhile, consider this case from Ohio.

Sound familiar? I can't agree with all the objections voiced by the Mt. Tabor Road residents, but from the very beginning, they've grasped an essential point, because the "project" has been one designed to make the road usable by an increased number of cars, and an increased number of cars means a decreased quality of life.

Blair's probably right in this instance. However, the biggest revelation would be if he were able to publicly apply the same logic to one-way streets downtown.

Toledo Neighbors Fight Back Against City’s Plan to Widen Their Road, by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog)

 ... This $12 million widening project isn’t all bad. Replacing a couple high-crash intersections with roundabouts would be a legitimate win for safety. And the plan calls for adding a sidewalk on the east side of the road.

But the lack of concern for surrounding residents and intense focus on providing wide lanes for car traffic is troubling residents like Dana Dunbar, an Ottawa Hills resident who has also lived in Toledo’s Old Orchard neighborhood. Dunbar says she thinks the city is missing a big opportunity, potentially undermining one of the healthiest residential and commercial areas in the region.

Dunbar concedes that the four existing lanes, at about nine feet each, are awfully narrow and make driving on Secor a hair-raising experience. But the city’s plan, funded by a federal Air Quality and Congestion Mitigation grant, seems to trade one safety problem for another. Studies have shown 12-foot lanes — a standard better suited for interstate highways than residential areas — promote speeding and undermine safety. The Federal Highway Administration, recognizing this, recently eliminated lane-width standards for lower-speed roads like Secor.

“They’re looking at it as more of an arterial road to move traffic though than a quality of living” project, said Dunbar.

Look at Gahan hide, hide. Not to worry, because John "Human Shield" Rosenbarger is standing by, eager to obfuscate.

Look at granny run, run, and grandpa runnin' close behind.

Look at granny run, run, there's something on grand-daddy's mind.

He went to the doctor, got a brand new pill.

The doctor said, "son, you ain't over the hill."

Now he can't sit still.

Great, gosh, almighty, won't you ...

In which we find the rock band Grand Funk Railroad anticipating the advent of Viagra by a full quarter century on this otherwise average album track from the album All the Girls in the World Beware!!! (1974).

In other news, it took a long while, but the intentionally understaffed Jeffersonville-based "community" newspaper has clanked ineffectually into gear, producing drab content, but inadvertently shining a tepid light on the Gahan regime's boilerplate, namely that the mayor himself won't personally be touching this one.

After the link, view the letter Gahan sent to residents of the vicinity.

Some New Albany residents line up against road project; work on Mount Tabor Road, Klerner Lane intersection to begin next year, by Chris Morris (Hanson Ad Aggregator Jeffersonville)

 ... The reconstruction project will cost around $6.5 million, of that the city is responsible for 20 percent — or about $1.3 million — with the federal government paying the rest.

"In the meantime, project and city officials will be contacting residents directly as they pertain to individual concerns," Rosenbarger said. “We recognize the need to improve communication.”

Rosenbarger said the neighbors and residents will be proud of the project once it’s complete.

“It will transform the neighborhood, it’s just a little painful getting there," he said. "But people will be pleased when it’s finished.”

Down here on Spring Street, we already have sidewalks. We just need the city to mow them every now and then.

I can't understand why they're not assuaged by the opportunity to work together with the machine.

The city's spin doctors have outdone themselves on this one: Meet the "Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project."

It's simply amazing what vocal citizen opposition ...

Council frivolity, slice of the second part: "Gahan Cares More About Concrete Than People."

 ... to a New and Improved Round O' Rosenbarger Cream Tort will do to bring David Duggins bounding full Sellersburg up the stairs from the Down Low Bunker to inform city council that with construction work about to start, now's the time for operatives to fan out through the neighborhood to alter misconceptions -- but not only that, there'll be a post-decision public meeting on August 22 to further encourage conformity.

You'll have to take my word for it, because the paper was too busy chasing Nicolas Cage around Clarksville to bother covering last night's council meeting.

The Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety project includes nearly 1.1 miles of new road construction, full curbs, gutters, and sidewalks. The need for this project is clear, considering the renewed surface cracking and foundation shifting occurring near the Slate Run creek slopes, along with the lack of any pedestrian facilities along the roadway. This project will provide a much needed reconstructed road that will aim to improve both pedestrian safety and provide traffic calming mechanisms.

If the neighborhood in question has no need for "pedestrian safety" and "traffic calming mechanisms" then could we get some of that along I-ESNA? Or does a city councilman's house facing the speedway disqualify him from trying, and us from consideration?

Cherish the ochlocracy, and recall where this whole business started, way back in December of 2013.

ON THE AVENUES: Roundabouts make the politicians really ring.

Council frivolity, slice of the second part: "Gahan Cares More About Concrete Than People."

Thanks to Mr. B for these photos.

John Rosenbarger sat at his desk. Outside his door, the clamor of the peasantry could be heard amid the clatter of pitchforks.

He spat, then threw back his last shot of fiery sarsaparilla.

“The grandeur of my physique, the complexity of my worldview, the decency and taste implicit in my carriage, the grace with which I function in the mire of today’s world – all of these at once confuse and astound the buffoons at Mt. Tabor and Klerner Lane."

Rosenbarger gazed at his reflection in the framed portrait of Robert Moses.

"But Jeffie's got my back, bro."

New Albany residents concerned road construction will lead to more flooding; Council passes resolution to support NAFC Schools referendum

NEW ALBANY — Residents in neighborhoods near Silver Slate Creek have concerns that upcoming road construction will make flooding issues much worse.

Nearly 20 New Albany residents turned out at the New Albany City Council meeting Thursday to voice their concerns over a project that will widen Mount Tabor Road. New storm grates would mean drainage would go directly into the creek in the residential area.

Harvey Hamilton, who lives on Creek View Circle just in front of the creek, said he's been there 34 years and only started seeing issues four to five years ago.

“Silver Slate Creek starts right behind our house,” he said. “There's about a six or eight-foot pipe there that dumps where the creek starts. Now we've had five trees that have lost roots and washed across the creek. The cable people and the electric people moved their boxes up on the street.

“We're losing ground and losing trees. We appreciate anything you can do for us.”

For one resident, Team Gahan's congenital secretiveness has made the problem worse.

“It was my knowledge that plans for such projects have to be public, located somewhere within the county building where people who were affected could come and take a look at them and to my knowledge these people have said they've had trouble locating said plans."

6th district councilman Scott Blair, who helped the neighborhood slay the nasty Rosenbarger Roundabout back in '13, assured his constituents that he'd sponsor an openness resolution in council -- though he'll need to consult his Mutable Principles Book to see whether he can vote in favor of his own idea.

(Blair) wants to initiate a public meeting with the project engineers to keep the people updated on any changes that have been made and to refresh anyone's memory on the project that was initiated three years ago.

Bankers; you can't trust 'em, and even North Korea won't take 'em off your hands.

Unsurprisingly, the CoffeyCopperHead did not hesitate to strike: That hi-falootin' wee-fee dunnit.

“I still go back to $600,000 for WiFi for downtown. How far would that go to help this problem and that only goes to benefit very few people.”

Yes, "them people" again.

The summary:

The roundabout was removed from the plan in 2013, and the sidewalks are needed, but not unless the overall intent is narrowing lane widths and slowing traffic. These people rightly fear that road "improvements" will attract further traffic and make their drainage issues even worse. It's hard to argue against this point of view, but Jeff Gahan -- perhaps NA's least communicative mayor ever -- doesn't even try.

Hence the signs, and the pitchforks. If only we'd start using the latter.

(Part One)

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

For your listening and dancing pleasure, a selection of waltzes from last week's (March 29) Bored of Works meeting.

Once again we're reminded that even though it is to be a "greenway" for walkers and bicyclists, there'll be some manner of "limited" automotive access, perhaps akin to the Spring Street Interstate, and to make room for a roadway necessary for cars, even if narrowed, we'll have to remove 109 trees.

And in removing 109 healthy trees, we'll have to do it right now --STAT -- without asking Mr. Naps' permission, because if not, the bats will begin nesting.

Now, we might actually go to the tree board, and we might consult the arborist, but since the project was approved a long time ago, what possible good would that do?

Can someone explain why there even is such a thing as a tree board if it isn't to be informed of such matters?

Of course, we must inform Mr. Naps first -- then the tree board. After all, the tree board never served as Democratic Party chairman.

Rosenbarger's last brilliant road calming success was the catastrophic (for the street) Main Street Beautification Project, which runs past his house, ruins the roadway, and yet enhances his own property values. He casually reveals that yes, the Greenway route for humans will be open for cars, and we'll put a few pull-overs in to help keep things calm -- nudge nudge, wink wink.

It's how you keep your job, long after the thrill of performance is gone.

Finally, worn down by minutes of ineffectual questioning, Rosenbarger speaks something approximating actual truth. He'd have informed the board sooner about the need to clear-cut those 109 trees, but then things dragged too far along owing to his department's historic, sloth-like vigor, at which point it became necessary to move very quickly ... to capture the money.

And you wonder why 5th Street was paved (gotcha, overpaid lawyer) before being destroyed by Break Wind construction.

Heck, boy, we'd have lost the money -- and how the hell is the paver going to kick back some campaign finance if he doesn't pave?

Then, there's the (now) bald knob behind the church on State Street.

Ever the straight man, Mr. Naps asks: Are they allowed to cut like that?

Planning Department replies: We'll have to check on it.

If they're not allowed, I'd like to see Rosenbarger on a tractor, reattaching all the trees that already have been cut, like toothpicks protruding from a long overdue forced retirement cake.

ON THE AVENUES EXTRA: "No, John Rosenbarger, congestion is our friend. Help us achieve it, or get out of the way."

ON THE AVENUES EXTRA: "No, John Rosenbarger, congestion is our friend. Help us achieve it, or get out of the way."

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

As City Hall dithers, Year Zero draws nearer: Bridge tolls, social injustice, NA's street grid ... and the silence of the culpable.


The column originally was published on February 6, 2014. Two years later, it strikes me as one of my better summaries on the topic of New Albany's enslaved street grid. In fairness, I was wrong about one thing: Our economic development director is not capable of understanding what I wrote. As for the rest, I absolutely nailed it.

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For months – nay, years – we’ve remorselessly documented the fear, confusion and sheer intellectual laziness of local officialdom when it comes to grasping the basic tenets of street grid reform in New Albany.

It’s true that some of them are further along the path of righteousness than others, but virtually all are afflicted to some degree with a myopic inability, or maybe a plain unwillingness, to think clearly about the topic -- much less to do so openly and for attribution.

Festering at the heart of this ongoing disconnect is a fundamentally flawed understanding of the revitalization New Albany has managed somehow to achieve, against all institutional odds, in recent years: Who has propelled it, why it has occurred, and the incalculable extent to which such progress might be aided and abetted by immediate year-round infrastructure changes guaranteed to be far less costly than a part-time aquatics center.

Precisely because city officials don’t have a clear grasp of cause and effect, they are too easily afflicted with paralyzing dread of the unknown, which merely compounds the dead weight of a civic inferiority complex they simply can’t seem to shake.

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Conventional ruling wisdom is this: If we as a city do anything that might be remotely construed as discouraging the unrivaled hegemony of the automobile, or if we fail to resolutely mimic the residential and commercial logic of the suburb, these are signs of electoral weakness, and suddenly, no one will like us any longer – both as politicians seeking votes, and also as a municipal entity begging for attention in a crowded marketplace.

It’s inane drivel, but bizarrely resonates among the defeatists. It’s almost as though city officials are conceding that to them, the very idea of an independent business-led downtown revival always was doubtful, at best, especially when most folks (read: “city officials”) still prefer those nice dependable plasticized multinational chains crowding the former pastureland out along Veterans Parkway.

Sadly, this rampant manure fertilizes pervasive wrongheadedness.

In football terms, the governing deletes harbor an attitude similar to the infamous “prevent” defense, which typically stifles vigor and initiative, except that in football, coaches don’t start misusing the prevent until they’re ahead. Here, we’re doing it from behind.

In Junior High School terms, it’s like suffering from rampant adolescent insecurities and low self-esteem, and trying to dress and act like everyone else, just to fit in, only then belatedly realizing that not being yourself is no way to find yourself.

In economic development terms, it’s just plain unimaginative, derivative, non-creative insanity.

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As it pertains to the street grid, and as befitting those ordinary citizens of a similar age and demographic background who have traveled but paid depressingly scant attention to what they were seeing in a wider world, certain of our city officials evidently believe that the logic of the suburb applies equally and inexorably to the city center itself – that success can be achieved only by maximizing access via automobiles, whether it’s a doctrine applied to arterial streets that handily desecrate entire transitional neighborhoods, or surface parking that both mars the historic streetscape and prevents infill.

It is a self-defeating fallacy for an urban area, but it is the inextricable root fallacy of our detached leadership cadre, many of whom seem proud to know absolutely nothing about the contemporary ideas advanced by Jeff Speck (among others) in the year 2014, as opposed to 1964, and even though we’ve been talking and writing about these matters here at this blog since 2004.

That’s because when challenged to think, they fall back on their native “common” sense, gleaned from confounded, compounded incomprehension, and therefore not very sensible at all. I don’t mean to be harsh, but really, sometimes one must step away from the pasty white Cracker Barrel banquet table, break open an actual book, and learn something.

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In some respects, I do take city officials at their word. I believe they genuinely grasp that as the Ohio River Bridges Project advances from construction displacement through invasive tolling regime, New Albany stands to be badly harmed by hordes of pass-through cars and drivers, and by the congestive havoc they’ll cause.

However, I don’t see them grasping one iota of the curative logic, albeit counter-intuitive and requiring deeper thinking than suffices for watching network television, which explains the single best counter-active strategy available to us, as prefaced by Jeff Speck:

“Were it not for traffic congestion, we would drive enough additional miles to make congestion."

In short, to reduce congestion, induce congestion, although characteristically, city officials appear to be frozen in the approaching Hummer’s headlights as they grapple with their reigning congestive vision failure.

There’ll be congestion caused by the pass-throughs … but geez, how do we cope with congestion by reducing and slowing vehicular access … shouldn’t we be adding lanes and increasing speeds … hell, those neighborhood people gripe all the time, and they knew their quality of life downtown wouldn’t be half what it is on Rainbow Drive … can’t we just sit here and do nothing, because maybe a few of those cars will stop and eat, and then we can call it economic development, declare victory, and get re-elected and shit.

No. No. No.

NO.

To reduce congestion, induce congestion.

We must actively and unapologetically move to intentionally “congest” our current one-way arterials by making them two-way streets again; reducing lane sizes; lowering speeds; crowding them with walkers and bikers; or even adding a few of John Rosenbarger’s trademark totemic, fetishistic bump-outs of the sort be believes alone can transform paradigms over endless decades of gradual implementation.

But why fight congestion with congestion?

Because if we don’t, people in outlying areas will see downtown New Albany’s streets in precisely the same way they will view the Sherman Minton Bridge: A cost-free route for immediate passage.

Therefore, we must add user costs so as to discourage them, and seeing as we’ll not be tolling city streets during peak usage like London does, purposefully congesting the streets is the only way to impose a cost in extra time for the prospective pass-throughs, encouraging them to self-divert to avoid the cost in time, with the additional practical effects of (a) curbing bad congestion by using good congestion as a tool; (b) enhancing neighborhood quality of life; and (c) helping small, independent business to remain the driving force of downtown redevelopment.

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Now, here’s where the inferiority complex comes in.

But, omigod, Roger … if we do these things, then they’ll stop coming here, and everything we’ve tried to do …

Wait.

Everything YOU’VE tried to do?

Please.

It seems to me that if the indie business community has the confidence to grasp that street grid reform will deter unwanted pass-throughs while creating urban conditions all the more favorable for the great customers we already have – accepting the obvious fact that we’ve invested far more in money and time toward downtown revitalization than local government has ever dreamed of expending – why not take our word for it?

The people who are spending money downtown right now are not doing so because it has the same vibe as Veterans Parkway, or because we’re a convenient destination. New Albany’s always been out of the way, hasn’t it?

They’re doing it because downtown is different. Street grid reform stands to make downtown even more different, and better for the change; this can only increase consumer loyalty, not defeat it.

As an added bonus, lifting the quality of life in neighborhoods by ending the tyranny of one-way arterials stands to bring more of the neighborhood back to downtown, in effect adding the housing we currently lack in the epicenter. Why? Because they’ll be able to walk and bike and use the grid between their homes and downtown as human beings, not merely driving cars.

What stands in the way?

Essentially, an outdated mantra worthy of Warren Nash: “But it’s the way we’ve always done it.”

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Boy, haven't we. And see where it's gotten us?

Even it public works über-honcho John Rosenbarger “gets” all this, I’m finished defending him against his detractors, because it has occurred to me that never in my experience advocating for two-way traffic, when John’s somewhere within earshot, has he unequivocally endorsed the idea. Not once.

Rather, each time, he has uttered a disclaimer: Well, if not two-way streets, then traffic calming, and yes, this might make sense if he had a record of actively spearheading traffic calming and complete streets, but while he’s always talked a wonderful game about them, it has taken three decades for us to boast even those minuscule, scattered and pathetically unconnected examples we have now.

Sorry, but it’s time to say it publicly: For reasons unknown, John’s fatally biased against two-way street reform, perhaps because of his preference for the lifelong bureaucrat’s creeping bump-out incrementalism, which we no longer have time to indulge. He’s not helping us; he’s pushing back against us. In fact, I’ve come to believe that John is a major force against the changes we need right now, whether intentionally or otherwise. That’s too bad, and I wish I knew why. He’s not helping us. He’s hurting us.

Concurrently, I believe that economic development director David Duggins is fully capable of understanding the points I’m making here, but chooses not to do so, probably because there are no one way streets in the industrial park.

Moreover, perhaps as few as two, maybe three council persons see the merit of street grid modernism. And, honestly, I have no clue what Mayor Jeff Gahan sincerely believes about this topic, or for that matter, what he believes about anything at all. He remains a sphinx, forever guarded.

The fact is this: We’ve utterly wasted ten years on slipshod photo-op chicanery best symbolized by two bike lanes on each side of a one-way street, attached to nothing, and sheltered not one jot from unregulated vehicular traffic that negates the effort of painting the stripes, and if people like John Rosenbarger want to boast about this as though it were some semblance of a professional legacy, that’s exceedingly odd, because it isn’t, unless professional legacies typically embrace perpetually parsing fifty shades of stalled congestive anxiety, then waiting another few years before refraining from doing anything yet again.

Those municipal officials seeking a substantive legacy might consider leading change rather than road-blocking it. Otherwise, getting the hell out of the way would be a nice alternative, or at least not sabotaging the effort of those who’ve actually put money where their mouths are.

I’m ready to start painting yellow lines.

Aren’t you?

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Recent columns:

February 4: ON THE AVENUES: Hello, I must be going.

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.

Rosenbarger's "Break Wind Plan" for traffic calming on Spring Street.

But ma, they keep handing me material -- and you taught me to be thrifty and use the whole pig. Problem is, I keep running out of lipstick.

For Pinocchio Rosenbarger and the Bored: Synchronized traffic lights on State Street won't solve anything.

At last week's Bored of Works and Auto Safety meeting, Grandaddy Naps tried to wrap his arms around traffic problems on State Street.

At issue was the prospective acquisition of land to place signal boxes in preparation for a federally-funded project to make State Street more navigable for greater numbers of automobiles, without taking minor factors like walkability into mind, so as to approve whole new parcels of auto-centric retail development, presumably to be financed by Scott "Banker" Blair's firm.

It may help to recall that even before it began picking its collective nose, the very first thing the Bored of Works did upon receiving Jeff Speck's Downtown Street Network Proposal was to omit State Street from it.

Surely this was no coincidence.

One year later, the very same time-serving luminaries who brought you dainty sidewalk numbers for the motorcycle club ...

... will yet again pay no heed to the notion of induced demand, as explained here in relation to Los Angeles.

If you can find anything in any of this to inspire confidence that a gang perennially unable to plan straight will (a) begin two-way street reversions, and if lightning strikes and they actually do, (b) execute them according to spec ... let me know.

Do Synchronized Traffic Lights Really Solve Congestion Woes?

... Although many traffic experts agree that LA’s money was well spent on the synchronization, some are skeptical that the new system will reduce congestion in the long run. Statistics indicated an initial reduction in congestion … until people realized that the city’s roadways were less awful and a new population of previously avoidant motorists took to the roads.

It’s like loosening your belt after a particularly large meal — while it creates more room for your burgeoning belly, the space is quickly filled because you can finally relax (or eat dessert). The same thing is happening with LA traffic. By reducing average travel times, synchronized traffic lights allow more people to travel. The benefit may not necessarily be speedier traffic, but rather a greater number of cars passing through during the same amount of time. The level of congestion may stay the same simply because there are more cars on the road.

Eminent domain? Is an Ohio River marina yet another Gahan expenditure on the down low?

The Green Mouse has received this note via the rumorama.

What's with this guy and water? Is it Freudian? First a bricks and mortar water park, then unaddressed storm water flooding taking the place of neighborhood splash pads, and now a marina.

The city has filed an eminent domain lawsuit against the owner of riverfront property near the 10th Street terminus. The city wants the riverfront property on the water side of the flood wall for the new "city marina."

What new city marina?

John Rosenbarger and David Duggins told him they'd already filed 25 such suits, and won them all. "We're very good at this," they threatened.

Bragging about stealing 25 properties from citizens? And what about crippling future property taxes through all the TIF bonds?

Is there a council person reading who'd like to do his or her job and verify these eminent domain lawsuits, as well as plans for a marina?

Because we KNOW you're reading.

Rosenbarger's plaque, Gahan's yard sign, ethical quagmires, and the urgent need for deep cleansing in City Hall.

We're still not exactly sure how much the .8-mile-long Main Street "Improvement" Project cost, but whether $3 million, $4 million or probably more, it was intended (among other aims, most of them far more dubious) to improve the value of property on Main Street, at the request of a handful of residents, and to the exclusion of properties on the remainder of the streets in the city.

John Rosenbarger administered the project.

He lives on Main Street.

He will benefit from it.

He now has a Gahan sign in his yard.

We snicker at corruption in other countries, and throw around terms like "banana republic" and "kleptocracy" ...

Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, (from Greek: κλέπτης - kleptēs, "thief" and κράτος - kratos, "power, rule", hence "rule by thieves") is a term applied to a government seen as having a particularly severe and systemic problem with officials or a ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) taking advantage of corruption to extend their personal wealth and political power. Typically this system involves the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest service.

... but maybe we should refrain -- particularly those in the camp of the mayor who has rendered such notions so very close to home.

After all, given the immediate need for deep cleansing in City Hall, we wouldn't want to insult the world's kleptocrats, would we?

Trees 1: "Thomas Street now looks like a war zone, devoid of life, beauty, and charm."

Still more Rosenbarger deforestation.

Part 2
Part 3

That's right: It's deja vu all over again.

Over the weekend, a conversation started at the Facebook group called New Albany Indiana, which is an excellent portal for local news and events.

A few neighbors who live on or near Thomas Street are upset because trees were cut down as part of the sidewalk replacement project there, and (stop me if you've heard THIS one before) they received neither forewarning nor an opportunity to offer an opinion on the topic.

And some of them are steamed. If for any reason you cannot view the page, here is a sampling of the comments. In fact, one of them composed and shared a "jeer" for the newspaper.

a JEER to the city of New Albany (or whoever is responsible) -

Thomas Street now looks like a war zone, devoid of life, beauty, and charm. Thank you (NOT!) for cutting down all of our trees. Some trees have been taken care of meticulously by their owners - beautiful, Bradford pear trees. Trees where the owners always had them trimmed. Trees that just had $600 spent on them a few months ago for trimming. Trees that are now pulverized.

Trees that are good for us, good for the environment, added shade, added beauty, added value to our homes and our neighborhood.

This was totally NOT necessary. This neighborhood is upset.

Cue the annoyed, as follows.

• Why did they cut down the trees
• Good question.....
• They were NOT all diseased ... our neighbors had planted beautiful pear trees along the side of their house (corner of Culbertson and Thomas) - they FAITHFULLY had them trimmed and kept them beautiful!!! In fact, just a couple of months ago they paid out $600 for them to be trimmed (which they did every year). They were NOT diseased. Our neighborhood looks TERRIBLE now!!!! Thomas Street used to look like a beautiful lane with the trees. Now it looks like a war zone.!!!!
• New Sidewalks were put in on our other streets and few to no trees were cut down. Getting new sidewalks is a lousy excuse. I have lived here for 30 years and it looks TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!! I am so glad someone put this on here, because I have been prepared to write a letter to the Tribune and put a call into the Mayor's office. This is one, VERY unhappy New Albany resident. We NEEDED those trees. They are good for the environment. They are good for our home values. They added beauty to this ugly, cruel world of ours. I. AM. NOT. HAPPY.!!!!!
• Oh, and just one MORE thing - when the sidewalks were being put in earlier, the jack hammers were so loud and so hard, it literally shook our houses - and caused new cracks in our neighbor's house!!! This may not be one of the ritzy, hotsy-totsy neighborhoods, but we have VERY nice older homes with an abundance of character (how many of YOU have seven stained glass windows, cedar lined window seats, beveled glass in your windows and mirrors, a built-in Belknap ice box in your kitchen)....but we take pride in our neighborhood and we have the BEST neighbors!!!
• Same thing happened on Main Street - 72 trees (my count) were cut down in order to make New Albany a more 'walkable' city. Maybe it's just me but I like my walk in the shade of those beautiful trees. I'll vote for the neighbor's cat before I vote for Gahan.
• (I gently rebutted the preceding: "Let's be emphatic: the Main Street project was about beautification (according to a solitary top-down $$$ definition) and not about walkability. Street trees are an essential component of walkability. Love it or hate it, the notion of walkability is about infrastructure design, not beautification."
• New Albany took a third of my front yard to widen the road and put sidewalks in. Crime is up, traffic of school buses all day long (choking us to death when on front porch) and the sidewalks look like maybe they got ripped off by a low ball bidder, and last but not least, they tore up my driveway and never repaired it. My driveway is now washing away and will cost me thousands to get it redone. New Albany also fined us $250 for having our trash sitting too close to our privacy fence. They said it was a fire hazard. Yes, New Albany loves their tax payers. I can tell.
• This also happened to the beautiful shade trees in front of the National Cemetery on Ekin. I was also told they were diseased trees....ridiculous!!!!
• Many of them were beautiful and well maintained. Now, this street - which needs all the help it can get- looks plain U.G.L.Y. and very non-inviting.
• Dead trees are one thing. Diseased trees fall within the same category. Beautiful trees that are serving many purposes, all positive, ....quite another. Seems as if someone decided that this was blighted property.

If Jeff Gahan allergic to transparency?