NA Confidential: June

Showing posts with label June. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

NA Confidential's belated Top Ten list of posts for June, 2019.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy reconnoitering the neglected periphery for uniquely local perspectives on life in New Albany. Our New England getaway was in progress during the first part of July, when I usually compile the top ten lists, and then I got busy with other tasks. Consequently for June, 2019, I'll list only the top ten posts sans honorable mention, in ascending order.

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947

LIVE TO EAT: There's nothing quite like German beer with German food, so get over to the Gasthaus and see what I mean.

I've spent the last few evenings looking at 30-year-old slides of Europe; prior to this, last December's photos in Munich and Bamberg were organized. Through it all, periods of thirst have been handled with the help of Wernesgruner, a pilsner brewed in eastern Germany near the Czech border, which we've been keeping around the house.

It occurs to me that even if dinner is pickled herring from the Baltic areas of Germany and not sauerbraten or sausages from Bavaria, German beer remains the default accompaniment to German food. Make the argument for wine if you will. I like my chances of finding the ideal beer.

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1,004

At The Aggregate, a discussion of the ethics and legality of Slick Jeffrey's 4-H Fair propaganda blitz.

As we've pointed out numerous times in the past, the campaign finance cash Jeff Gahan collects from pay-to-play special interest donors and the tax proceeds we all pay into local government are often co-mingled to the point of pea soup fog. Too many voters shrug it off. They shouldn't.

The problem is compounded by the mayor's ego, which has long since swelled past the dimensions of a dirigible. He genuinely believes the press clippings generated by his own propaganda commissariat, and he can't tell the difference between the city and himself.

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1,144

A solid preview of The Standard Plate & Pour, coming to the former Gospel Bird footprint.

Good things happen when writers aren't bound by the imperative to write to a 3rd-grade level and produce text capable of being read in two minutes. The newspaper's editors give recent hire McAfee almost1,000 words, and she uses them quite well, producing one of the better Tom May Content Coagulator restaurant previews in a while.

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1,232

Following up: Kudos to the city for the cleanup.

I'm told the city dispatched a crew to pack away the garbage and construction debris from the alley behind Pints&union, and they're to be thanked for doing so -- as is the health department for coming yesterday to have a look.

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1,270

Egg on City Hall's face yet again as fly-by-night rasslers exchange body fluids in Vinod Gupta's building.

So there's a health emergency in a rotting building and City Hall is clueless, but if Blevins stick a key in the ignition of a garbage truck just a few steps away, ordinance enforcement is there in seconds. You know, in New Albany it's really hard to tell where the incompetence ends and the corruption begins.

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1,280

A sign of things to come at Schmitt Furniture, as exterior restoration continues.

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1,484

River City Winery's sly Facebook tease about a move to Jeffersonville.

I blame it entirely on Mike Moore.Conversely, RCW provides no further information apart from the revised logo, and these things take time.

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1,485

It's the business of being in business: Matt McMahan explains the Cox's-to-Boomtown Kitchen story ... then drops the mic.

Consequently it's refreshing to have Matt McMahan tell the story, which he did earlier today on Facebook. Whatever one's opinion about Matt (and there are many, as with me) his grasp of dollars and sense in a small business context cannot be denied. Big Four was successful, but the purchasing group couldn't hold it together, so Matt brokered a different outcome.

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1,548

Department of City-Owned Chicanery: Why did the city pay $300,000 for this (now) vacant lot at the corner of Culbertson and E. 5th?

According to Elevate, the city of New Albany purchased the property in January for $300,000. There are derelict houses on all sides, and even the assessed value of a mere $47,800 seems too high -- so why has the city paid more than six times the assessed value to own it?

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1,706

What Steve Resch has in mind for the Jimmy's Music Center building downtown.

It's one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.

Tuesday, July 03, 2018

The Reisz Five's fix leads the Top Ten posts at NA Confidential for June 2018.

June 2018 always will be remembered
for the back-alley Reisz city hall fix.

If you're on Twitter and aren't following Hon. Deaf Gahan, go there immediately and enjoy the shadow mayoral account.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy reconnoitering the neglected periphery for uniquely local perspectives on life in New Albany.

City Hall's allegations to the contrary, it can be grasped quite clearly that hundreds of you are reading, and we believe this fact attests to a keen ongoing interest in grassroots New Albany stories, perhaps because they're being chronically under-served elsewhere. After all, fawning stenography and inexorably multiplying religion columnists can get a newspaper only so far.

The June list begins with five "honorable mention" posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1. These statistics are derived from Google's internal accounting.

As an aside, never before has an ON THE AVENUES column finished as the top post of the month.

JUNE HONORABLE MENTION (5)

487 (tie)

Goodbye to the Fork in the Road, hello to "Mayor Jeff Gahan presents, "A Fork Amid the Sidewalk" -- and fork YOU if you don't obey.

Jeeebus, the clique is engorged. Anyone for lancing the boil in 2019?

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487 (tie)

Jeff Gahan handed Denton Floyd $750,000 to kick-start the Reisz project. Where are the documents detailing this transaction?

Gibson told councilmen that if the city’s back-alley deal with Denton Floyd falls through, there are no other choices aside from demolition. Either the city spends a minimum of $10,000,000, or there’ll be a hole in the ground. Anyone listening to Gibson should have asked a simple question.

How so?

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527

Peak inner city suburban Gahanism via faux "input," pre-determined outcomes, clear-cutting, IKEA chairs and raging HWC paranoia. Welcome to your "improved" Market Street.

In turn, this means that once again -- have we reached 50 times yet, or 75? -- David "I'm Beaming About Buildings" Barksdale of the largely fictitious Treeless Board is merrily presiding over the felling of at least seven healthy trees, proving yet again that irony in New Albany is stone effing dead -- and moreover, with Barksdale the council swing voter of the moment, he's buffed to a high sheen by the City Hall patronage machine and encouraged time and again to lube the chain saw as a means of glorifying objects, as opposed to people.

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554

First Taco Walk, now 1 Night Stand. It's not derogatory to suggest that no idea is safe from being hijacked by Develop New Albany.

The reason why I don't write fiction is that real life is endlessly bizarre, so let's take a look at the next purloined event from the foot-shot specialists. It's called 1 Night Stand, and if this term sounds weirdly familiar to you, keep reading.

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577

"What and who is New Albany Social?"

Kelly's and Beth's grassroots enthusiasm is contagious. It's pleasingly non-corporate, and comes spontaneously. What they're doing is great, and let's hope for many more posts.

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584

Neither City Hall nor HWC Engineering sees a problem with this mishap-plagued intersection. Maybe we should appeal to Floyd County government for help.

To no one's surprise, BOW has been completely unresponsive -- and as fatigued city engineer Larry Summers informed council just a few weeks ago, he's so busy coordinating campaign donations from paving companies that there's no time for the consideration of other matters. Unfortunately, Greg Phipps has a history of stopping short of useful action that might offend Dear Leader, so here we are. Perhaps it's time for residents of the 3rd district to learn from the instructive experience of Vulcan, West Virginia in the late 1980s. There's a crucial and delightful twist, seeing as the USSR and the GDR no longer exist.

JUNE TOP TEN

590

It was my first Kentuckiana Pride Parade, but it won't be my last.

I've never participated in a Kentuckiana Pride Parade, so today was a first for me, and awesome to boot. Thanks to Centerstone of Kentucky, Diana's employer, for having me.

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612

Many of you hadn't been born the last time these Schmitt Furniture windows were visible.

Much of Schmitt Furniture's block is being overhauled as I write, with projects underway on all four sides. There's much work yet to be done, but for today, to those engaged in this process: thanks and congrats.

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630 (tie)

2-for-1? Scott Blair describes a better way to save the Reisz building AND get a new city hall.

Blair's idea has one major flaw, because the work required to save Reisz and build city hall probably would not be finished before next year's elections, and completed bright shiny objects are essential to Gahan's flashcard campaign strategy.

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630 (tie)

Stop the Reisz Elephant: There'll be a public meeting on Wednesday, June 27, downstairs at the library, at 6:00 p.m.

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667

The two most recent Manic Street Preachers albums, ending one era and beginning another.

A new Manic Street Preachers album has been released. It's called Resistance is Futile, and I love it. There'll be more to say about the album at another time; for the moment, here's a glorious song (above) and an excerpt from the review at NME:

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719

Smoking gun? City Hall finally releases the "Reimbursement Agreement" with Denton Floyd. A "do over" for Reisz is possible, isn't it?

As such -- and I'm not a lawyer -- the agreement reads as though in the interim, Denton Floyd is to receive a sum of money to carry out certain tasks, and if council approval isn't forthcoming, ownership and improvements pass back to the city.

In short: contrary to corporate attorney Shane Gibson's assertions on the 21st, a Reisz Elephant do-over is still very much possible. Gibson said demolition would be the only alternative, but if council were to reject the backroom deal and the Reisz pass back to the city, it would still be possible for Scott Blair's market-oriented alternative suggestion to come to fruition.

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808

Jeff "Look at Me" Gahan's aquatic cult of personality: He brings us health, all by himself.

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850

Not to be outdone, Deaf Gahan plans a Pride Parade route for New Albany.

"Mike, this whole administration is just wonderful, and I'm just proud as punch about all this pride, but you didn't say if any trees will be removed for the parade. I can make that happen, you know. My peeps on the Tree Board know chainsaws. Take down those trees, and it makes it easier for people in their cars to see the buildings -- I mean, the parade banners."

"Unfortunately, no -- the whole parade route is inside a bar. It's not even historic."

Barksdale sighed audibly.

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916

Apartments above, vacant storefronts below. Why do commercial spaces in mixed use developments remain empty?

The reason these (often) mandated retail spaces remain empty is because they're priced too high and sized too large for indies; cookie cutter developers with little interest in the real world apart from grabbing municipal abatements and incentives don't bother very much to consider what might actually work in these commercial spaces, and they're willing to sit on emptiness rather than put in the effort to learn.

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927

Truth is stranger than fact: Back in 2012, the Reisz building was to become a senior living complex. Bob Caesar kneecapped it -- and Deaf Gahan DISAGREED with Cee-Saw.

Welcome to Weird New Albany. Now that Summit Springs has been rendered into a partnership of sorts between its greed-headed developers and City Hall, and since it is being devoted to hotels and retail, not apartments, those bumps from 2012 are forgotten, and Caesar and Gahan can hold hands while praising the view from the Taco Bell by the strip mine. Moreover, having chased away Sterling, these two political lovebirds can bond over Reisz as a paean to luxury governance.

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1,649

ON THE AVENUES: Histrionic preservation? $8.5 million to gift Jeff Gahan with a new city hall "want" is inexcusable and simply obscene in a time of societal need.

It's June, 2018, and peak Gahanism has arrived. The Leaden Anchor-Laden Emperor has decreed that housing conditions for his staff outweigh the needs of the many, and so it seems inevitable that the “dilapidated” and “neglected” Reisz Furniture building on Main Street not only will escape the tavern’s dismal fate, but is singularly worthy of conversion into a brilliant new showpiece City Hall, one destined to gather many gushing state and national preservation awards, and some sweet day, bear the mayor’s name in awestruck tribute.

Monday, July 03, 2017

From the Indiana Chamber of Commerce through Bob Hall and Jeff Gahan, "The Problem With Indiana Is Indianans."

If you see Wendy Dant Chesser at an oligarch's flesh-presser ... it may be wise not to mention your choice of reading material.

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403

Covering and uncovering trip hazards at Elm and 10th without bothering to fix the problem? Why, that's #gahansafe!

This week on Thursday prior to the onset of rain, I was walking and noticed that after two weeks, the pylons still hadn't been moved back to their positions guarding trip hazards that the city refuses to mitigate over a period of years, and so I replaced them. To whom should I send my civic mindedness invoice? I'm guessing the addressee isn't Warren Nash, who no doubt will yawn and return to the task of re-electing a mayor with no aptitude for detail amid grandiose TIF-laden boondoggles.

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407

30 years ago today ... experiencing Sopron, Hungary.

Bizarrely, after the fall of Communism the city of Sopron became a center of Hungarian dental tourism, with one of the highest per capita concentration of dentists in the world. As example, in the early 2000s a crown in Sopron cost 25% that of neighboring Austria, leaving more discretionary income for visiting patients to indulge with food and drink.

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412

Putsch: The agenda of Gahan's handpicked public housing flunkies remains, "Do as we say, not as we do."

Welcome to another installment of "Clear Out the Poor People to Make Way for Luxury," in which beguiling sycophant Irving Joshua somehow mentions the words "conflict of interest" without a laugh track. But as Mayor Jeff Gahan once said, "Nobody reads the paper."

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416

Scraping rock bottom: Jeff Gahan brings his cult of personality to Kroger shopping carts. But who paid for these political ads?

In other words, Mayor Gahan encourages you to shop at just one supermarket chain to the exclusion of others -- unless the city is paying for his re-election ad placements at Wally World, too.

What't next, Big Lots?

JUNE'S TOP TEN

419

Grid Control, Vol. 3: TARC's taking your curbside church parking, says City Hall.

The question: "Why are the curbs in front of the churches painted yellow?"

This answer: Blame it on the buses, not the denomination.

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430

Grid Control, Vol. 7: What will the Board of Works do to rectify HWC's striping errors on the north side of Spring Street, apart from microwaving another round of sausage biscuits?

It still blows me away that the single largest public works project in and around downtown New Albany in decades is happening in front of our house as I type and I (and everyone else) has to wait until they literally paint the lines on the street to know what it's going to be. Everyone in city government involved in the plan - administration, council, board of public works, planning department, engineering - should be ashamed of themselves ...

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551

Grid Control, Vol. 1: You people drive so freaking horribly that someone's going to die at Spring and 10th.

Yesterday I watched the driver of a semi rig roar through the bend at a guesstimated speed of 40 mph. He almost brushed the curb. Meanwhile, the police tell me they never ticket truck drivers -- like this rig parked on the sidewalk by Elm Street.

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719

All available info points to a Hitching Post Tavern renovation after the fire, so all the best to them.

This is good news, because advocating for the future of independent local businesses means rooting for all of them, not just the ones on your personal rotation of patronage.

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807

"10 Steps to Fix a City," including axing anyone on staff who believes the fixes are unworkable.

Imagine you attend a meeting of City Council, the Redevelopment Commission or the Board of Public Works and Safety, and as you're sitting there, expecting the same ol' same ol', an elected representative or appointed official begins explaining what he or she read at Strong Towns.

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948

A tale of two riverfront murals, and more. Or less.

The graffiti wall actually encourages the viewer to think about artistic expression, while the other one is a vehicle (pun intended) for the "unofficial" civic anchor seal, which nonetheless now appears on every street sign and Gahan for Life mailer, and was shoved down a city's collective throat by barely literate time servers who believe dogs playing poker constitute the acme of artistic expression.

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1,025

Grid Control, Vol. 5: Egg on HWC Engineering's well-compensated face as it botches Spring Street's westbound bike buffer cross hatching.

The cross hatching is "aimed" the wrong way on the north side of Spring. The lines should be giving at least the subliminal signal that you should keep your west-moving car to the left of the buffer, but as painted, they imply that you should veer right. Not only that, but as we observed previously, the parking spaces on the north side of Spring are consistently 6 to 8 inches less deep from curb to line, enhancing the prospect of cyclists being "doored."

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1,189

Something's happening at 129 W. Market, where Wolf Supermarket used to be, and we know one of the principals.

Recently there have been signs of construction activity at 129 W. Market Street, which old-timers know as the former Wolf Supermarket (closed circa 1993; Gary Wolf died in 2011). I checked on Elevate, and the building's owner is Cielito Lindo Properties LLC.

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1,213

The pace of buildout has increased at Hull & Highwater, and soon it will be July.

For those just tuning in (where have you been, anyway?), here's a glimpse of the future at 324 E. Main, formerly WE Studio, according to Hull & Highwater's page at Fb.

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1,405

Here's an update on District 22 Pizzeria, opening any day now in downtown New Albany.

I ran into Matt McMahan yesterday at the post office, and later he sent these photos of District 22 Pizzeria, his new project, located next to Big Four Burgers + Beer NA.