Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast 2019: "That is one hell of a big tent right there!"

Unity of purpose at the 2019 Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast: (left to right) State Representative Ed Clere: former city councilman, former county commissioner, longtime small business owner and current mayoral candidate Mark Seabrook: scruffy beer guy and iconoclast who sneaked in via the kitchen, then crashed the photo op; and Irv Stumler, whose CV is far too long to list here.*

The combined years of service offered by these three men to our community simply boggles the mind. 125? That's probably a low estimate.

I've disagreed with each of these men in the past, at times vehemently, and yet we still communicate with each other. Making sense isn't an activity confined to one side of an imaginary "aisle."

Some readers remain mystified at recent headings like this:

ON THE AVENUES: Socialists for Seabrook, because we desperately need a new beginning in New Albany.

They shouldn't be puzzled at all. This one isn't hieroglyphics, either.

Democrat David White: "I am asking ALL the people who have supported me over the years to help Mark Seabrook put People First!"

The coda goes to Kelly Feiock, in a photo taken at last week's chili cook-off at the Calumet Club.

Kelly wrote: "I LOVE this pic! Roger, Scott (Whalen) and I formed a friendship based on a desire to make our city a better place."

THAT'S the point, isn't it?

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* Thanks to Steve LaDuke for the "tent" quote.

Vote your conscience for New Albany City Clerk, as both candidates are excellent.

To be perfectly honest, I've agonized over the question of an endorsement for the city clerk's race.

The incumbent Vicki Glotzbach (D) has been unfailingly courteous and professional since she became city clerk in 2012. Prior to her two terms in office, she was a deputy city clerk. Obviously experience favors her.

However I greatly admire challenger Kelly Feiock (R) for her relentlessly fact-based involvement with the Mt. Tabor Road Project resistance movement. It's very important for all seats to be contested, and she's a powerhouse activist and a solid candidate -- and the only candidate to whom I've personally donated.

At the grassroots level, I tend to believe two terms in office are enough. Then again, the office of city clerk has yet to be overtly politicized.

The major imperative in this year's municipal election is to drive a garlic-lubed stake through the heart of the Democratic Party's pay-to-play political patronage machine, but I can't make the case that the city clerk's race is central to this civic necessity.

So there. I'm stymied. Glotzbach or Feiock; vote your conscience, and I'll vote mine.

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Endorsement Compendium:

• Vote Stefanie Griffith for New Albany City Council District 1.
• Vote Scott Stewart for New Albany City Council District 2.
• Vote for Thunder the Wonder Ferret as a write-in for New Albany City Council District 3.
• Vote Cisa Kubley for New Albany City Council District 4.
• Vote Josh "JT" Turner for New Albany City Council District 5.
• Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.
• Vote Al Knable and Christina Estill for New Albany City Council At-Large.
• Vote your conscience for New Albany City Clerk, as both candidates are excellent.

Slip sliding away, Vol. 2: "In researching Indiana Code, it was discovered that the City of New Albany abused the power of eminent domain in acquiring land for a public utility."

Last night Kelly Feiock, a Mt. Tabor Road resident, patiently sat through the regularly scheduled city council meeting so she could rise during public speaking time and offer a few facts for the consideration of the city's presumed legislative body.

Slip sliding away, Vol. 1: A desperately Deaf Gahan seeks to divert your attention from Mt. Tabor malfeasance by attacking the citizenry for doing their homework. Voters, call his arrogant bluff.

Her testimony was devastating, but the image I'll never be able to erase from my memory was that of her councilman, Matt Nash, staring at the floor; inert, used up, unable to act autonomously without Jeff Gahan, Adam Dickey or Shane Gibson handing him a script. How very depressing.

Afterward a friend messaged me.

I don’t see Gahan surviving past the primary. His sins are stacking up. It’s over.

To which I replied:

Maybe. Don’t forget the people who benefit from his sins, who’ve convinced themselves that Gahan is the devil they know.

One would think that fair-minded Democrats (as Nash himself used to be) would be appalled by the steadily accumulating stench emanating from Gahan's Down Low Bunker of Misgovernance.

ON THE AVENUES: Donnie Blevins tells his story.

Isn't bullying like that inexcusable -- and what on earth does one man need with all this money?

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 20: Buying and selling a city? Our master list of 59 Gahan wheel-greasers is a pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.

Pay to play corruption, Mt. Tabor malfeasance, the intimidation and bullying of city employees ... folks, it's no longer about party affiliation. It's about cutting out a cancerous growth so this city can have a democratic future. Democrats, your party has aligned itself with tyranny, and I encourage you to vote for David White on May 7. 

The following is from Kelly Feiock, and approximates what she presented last night.

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It appears the City of New Albany has misappropriated government funds by abusing the power of Eminent Domain with the Mt. Tabor Road Project.

The City proposed the Mt. Tabor Road project in 2013, which is federally funded (80% federal and 20% local funded). The total cost was originally estimated at $6.5 million, with the city contribution being approximately $1.3 million.

This project severely affected approximately 40 properties on Mt. Tabor Road and Klerner Lane in New Albany. Although the City needed roughly ten feet of property for grass buffers and sidewalks on many of the properties, it acquired an additional 13 feet (or more) of right-of-way on these properties for overhead power lines.

In researching Indiana Code, it was discovered that the City of New Albany abused the power of eminent domain in acquiring land for a public utility. The public utility, in this case Duke Energy, is responsible for using the power of eminent domain for rights-of-way of its powerlines. In doing so, Duke Energy should take, acquire, condemn, and appropriate an easement itself.

Please see Indiana Code as it pertains to Eminent Domain:

IC 32-24-2  Chapter 2. Procedures for Cities and Towns

Per IC 32-24-2-3 "Property" is defined for Cities and Towns as used in this chapter, "property" refers to real property or personal property.

IC 32-24-2-6 Application of chapter; condemnation resolutions; notice;

remonstrances

Sec. 6. (a) This chapter applies if the works board of a municipality wants to acquire

property for the use of the municipality or to open, change, lay out, or vacate a street, an

alley, or a public place in the municipality, including a proposed street or alley crossings of

railways or other rights-of-way. However, this chapter does not apply if a municipality wants

to acquire the property of a public utility (as defined in IC 8-1-2-1).

IC 32-24-4 Chapter 4. Procedures for Utilities and Other Corporations

IC 32-24-4-1 Public utilities

Sec. 1. (a) A person, firm, partnership, limited liability company, or corporation authorized to do business in Indiana and authorized to: 

            (1) furnish, supply, transmit, transport or distribute electrical energy, gas, oil, petroleum, water, heat, steam, hydraulic power, or communications by telegraph or telephone to the public or to any town or city;

            (2) construct, maintain or operate turnpikes, toll bridges, canals, public landings, wharves, ferries, dams, aqueducts, street railways, or interurban railways for the use of the public or for the use of any town or city; may take, acquire, condemn, and appropriate land, real estate, or any interest in the land or real estate to accomplish the essential delivery of services described in subdivisions (1) and (2).

IC 32-24-4-2 Fee simple or easements

Sec. 2. The condemnor may take, acquire, condemn, and appropriate a fee simple estate, title, and interest in an amount of land as the condemnor considers necessary for the condemnor's proper uses and purposes. However, for rights-of-way, the condemnor shall take, acquire, condemn, and appropriate an easement.

See also: https://www.duke-energy.com/community/trees-and-rights-of-way/what-can-you-do-in-right-of-way/distribution-lines-guidelines-and-restrictions

Slip sliding away, Vol. 1: A desperately Deaf Gahan seeks to divert your attention from Mt. Tabor malfeasance by attacking the citizenry for doing their homework. Voters, call his arrogant bluff.

True story.

Previously, the photos.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Deaf Gahan may be juiced to the bejeezus-belt on donor cash, but he's not getting any votes from the Mt. Tabor Road construction zone, is he?

As of 12:00 noon on Tuesday morning, there's been nary a peep in Hanson's Folly (periodically known as the News and Tribune) about revelations offered near the end of last evening's city council meeting about the project only Deaf Gahan could have so pompously named: The Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project.

Perhaps this is to be expected given the tendency by publisher and editor to allow Gahan's in-house propaganda commissariat to write and pre-approve New Albany stories for them.

In turn, failures of duty like this are why stakeholders living on and near Mt. Tabor Road have been compelled to devote inordinate amounts of time completing the same sort of homework Gahan never bothered with in school, having still not cracked open a book since he took up permanent residence in the Oval Crooked Office.

For eight years prior to running for mayor, Gahan constantly was running for mayor. As witnessed by his pay-to-play campaign finance haul since 2011, Gahan never has stopped running for mayor during all the years since.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 20: Buying and selling a city? Our master list of 59 Gahan wheel-greasers is a pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.

$438,000 surely buys plenty of Rice Krispies Treats and Kool-Aid, although these folkloric medications only worsen the self-delusion, arrogance and hubris that have characterized Gahan's career in politics.

But we must be honest and concede that while the office may have exacerbated these tendencies, they've always existed deep inside the shadowy cranium of an otherwise mild-mannered veneer peddler whose only real achievement since attaining his current position of authoritarian tinpot has been to constantly inflict his will on those who never mistook his dull-witted plodding for inspired genius.

Now during an election year intended by Gahan as royal coronation, it laughably transpires that “running for mayor” is an insult Gahan directs at others, though of course never at himself -- and lots of folks who seek municipal contracts are perfectly content to fluff Deaf's inflated ego as "Democrats" stand idly to the side, pretending they're progressive.

Of course if a guy like Gahan walked into a tavern every day for seven years, during each visit reminding the patrons of his exalted, divine-right perfection, it's barely conceivable the regulars might gently mock him while at the same time tolerating his presence as comic relief from a minor eccentric.

Conversely, he might also be kicked out the door and straight to the curb as an obnoxious blowhard.

And so over there stands the mayor, dimly aware that because it's an election year he can't duck the media on every question, agreeing to speak with WAVE about an unnecessary road-building project that defines his tenure in office -- albeit it NOT the way he thinks it does -- then taking this opportunity to trash stakeholders for contesting his exalted, divine-right perfection.

Lest we forget the last time Gahan opened his mouth about this issue.

Click through, read the whole story, and join me as we await the newspaper's inevitable backpedaling.

Volume 2 here

Back and forth in New Albany over Mount Tabor Road project by Sara Rivest at WAVE-3

Progress on Mount Tabor Road construction questioned

A neighborhood dispute over new sidewalks in New Albany has now spun into debate over where money is being spent and whether it will even be finished as planned.

Those concerns came from a resident who said she’s done her homework, as well as one council member who wanted to hear her out on the Mount Tabor Road project.

Resident Kelly Feiock said she filed a complaint with the Indiana Bureau of Auditors on Monday.

“The intersection and the east side of Mount Tabor Road has been put on hold,” Feiock claimed. “There is no plan, there is no funding.”

Feiock lives on that road, has watched the project unfold and brought what she stirred up to the city council Monday.

“Anybody know why the project was reduced from one mile to a half a mile?” Feiock asked. “Alright, how about $6.5 million that was initially proposed and now its $3.1 million -- what happened to the other $3.4 million? Anybody? Seriously? Tell me because you’re the councilmen?!” ...