Kerry Stemler's various catastrophic legacies do not include his own bank account.

I hope my colleague Jeff doesn't mind my reprinting these words, which he posted elsewhere.

The Ohio River Bridges Project is the single largest, most intrusive injustice foisted on my home in my lifetime. Whether it's only to prove at some later date that not all of us were so stupid and passive or there's still some immediate impact to be had, that's not conducive to shutting up and quitting. The project's negative impacts - where not minimized in every way possible - will last for decades, making it even more difficult to address other obvious needs. There is no bigger issue in Tuckyanna and plantation life just doesn't suit me.

Over at LEO, Jonathan Meador was on it last week.

A bridge too far? Jury is out on whether bridges project will increase city’s ‘heat island’ effect, by Jonathan Meador (LEO Weekly)

... Despite mounting scientific evidence that Louisville is the fastest-heating city in the nation, regional leaders including Gov. Beshear, Mayor Greg Fischer and U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd, have doubled down on the project’s designs for more jobs by way of more asphalt, more vehicle emissions and more urban sprawl.

From LEO: "The bizarre ballad of Benny Breeze."

An excerpt from Jonathan Meador's report on Vaughan Scott's immaculate deception in the service of area pro-bridges project oligarchs.

The bizarre ballad of Benny Breeze; Astro-turfed pro-bridges campaign courts controversy, confusion, by Jonathan Meador.

Today, the ongoing saga of the Ohio River Bridges Project is going to get a lot weirder.

At 1:30 p.m. at the Kentucky African-American Heritage Center, the public will be introduced to Benny Breeze, the main character of a short film whose purpose is to “educate and entertain” the community about the $2.9 billion public works project in what amounts to a bizarre media campaign and bus tour bankrolled by pro-bridges project financiers that some members of the anti-toll activist community are calling an “astro-turfing” effort designed to distract, mislead and — at worst — offend.

Although Scott says he became involved in the project on behalf of the future of his three daughters and the future of the community, there appears to be more motivation behind his senses of familial concern and civic duty.

Scott is a board member of Southern Indiana’s pro-bridges project chamber of commerce, One Southern Indiana, and is the vice president of Wells Fargo subsidiary Axiom Financial Strategies Group, a well-to-do position allowing him to spend (along with other anonymous donors) an undisclosed sum to finance the Benny Breeze campaign.

In 2003, he served as the vice president for wealth management at brokerage and investment firm Smith Barney and, according to his Axiom corporate profile page, founded the Smith Barney Investment Center at New Albany’s Your Community Bank, a commercial bank upon whose board sits none other than Kerry Stemler, finance subcommittee chairman and co-chair of the Louisville and Southern Indiana Bridges Authority (LSIBA).

Currently, Axiom is housed in the same building as Stemler’s bank, at 101 W. Spring Street in New Albany, Ind.

May Day rally in Louisville.

From Jonathan Meador at LEO's Fat Lip blog.

May Day rally set for downtown Louisville

This weekend, we strongly urge you to get out and enjoy the weather by attending the massive May Day celebrations being held Sunday at downtown’s Jefferson Square Park, starting at 3 p.m., to maybe tacitly show the Scott “Koch whore” Walkers and Rick “OCP” Snyders of the world that we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take anymore of their shit.

There will also be puppets ...

LEO's Meador notes the obvious: There's still about $2 billion to cut from the ORBP.

As so many of us have been saying all damned afternoon, the very fact that two governors and a mayor now begin talking about "downsizing" the ORBP means that everyone involved has been lying all along about the impossibility of changing the scope of the project without some form of celestial intervention.

Label me suspicious, because to date, listening to virtually any of Bridges Authority kingpin Kerry Stemler's condescending spoutings has brought to mind Hunter S. Thompson's apt description of Richard Nixon:

"Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning."

LEO's Jonathan Meador is totally on course with his assessment. Who else is in for Thursday's meeting?

Small victory for common sense in Ohio River Bridges Project… maybe?

... Here’s a bet: Ask anybody who knows about this project and isn’t getting paid by the Bridges Coalition, 1 Southern Indiana or Greater Louisville, Inc., and they’ll most likely tell you that an East Bridge would alleviate roughly a third (or so) of the expected traffic a proposed Downtown bridge might experience. So, why not expand the East End bridge, not shrink it, and do away with the downtown portion altogether? Or a series of low-cost local access bridges (Warnin’: PDF)?

(Oh, shit: Now I remember why…)

Needless to say, this week’s meeting of the Bridges Authority (to be held Thursday, January 6, at 10:00 a.m. at New Albany’s Indiana University Southeast) should be interesting, indeed.

LEO: "Notes from Bridges Authority latest fustercluck."

More great work from Jonathan Meador. It reminds me of those days of yore when Louisville actually had a functioning daily newspaper.

Notes from Bridges Authority latest fustercluck

... This phenomenon of the open-closed meeting is a byproduct of modern American oligarchy, where atrocities can be hidden in plain sight because the devil lies in so many details. This effectively allows an organization like the Bridges Authority to appease our middle school social studies notions of democracy by inviting the public to witness an autocratic process firsthand, which is kind of like inviting someone over for dinner and making them watch you eat.

Or, as a fellow spectator noted, “We’re just watching them sit around and jerk each other off.”

Fat Lip: "And the Texan just wasn’t going to have any of this journalism nonsense."

At LEO's Fat Lip blog, Jonathan Meador considers the Jeffersonville city council's no-tolls resolution, and recounts a surreal interview with 1Si's master of ceremonies, Michael Dalby. Is it just me, or are cracks in the pro-bridges contingent's demeanor becoming ever more obvious?

One Southern Indiana?, by jmeador on utter bullshit.

At any rate, here’s part of a transcript of a phone conversation I had with Dalby, which was painful but interesting in the sense that it shows the kind of temperament these pro-bridges folks bring to the table.