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 July 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.
JULY HONORABLE MENTION (5)
404
Wait, is Scott Wood somehow getting his groove back?
He'd best be careful, because to contradict Mike Hall -- the city's chief propagandist and royal court food taster -- might well to bring the wrath of Dear Leader down upon him.
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419
Now the owner of HyperCars, a newly minted auto detailing shop in the former ServPro building on the southwest corner of Spring and 13th, wants to sell "luxury" used cars.
This recurring word, "luxury." But like Mayor Fouts up in Warren said, "it's still a used car lot."
I looked all over New Albany's zoning code and found no reference to "luxury" anything. The C-1b zoning classification refers to a "local" business, and it references the stipulations of C-1a, which seems to be describing small neighborhood retail shops, not car sales, hence the special exception being sought.
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421
$8,500 in one day's not a bad cut, eh? In 2017,the mayor sucked in just shy of $60,000 that we know about -- and it wasn't an election year. If you want to know what the Reisz building is about, follow the money -- and keep track of the transactions.
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439
June of 2018 will be remembered as the month when Emperor Gahan's personality cult paraded past and the voice of a child rang out:
"But he isn't wearing anything at all!"
In future years, we'll look back and see an uninterrupted arc of hypocrisy, beginning with Gahan's hostile takeover of the New Albany Housing Authority in early 2017 alongside promises of rampant demolitions to come, and now culminating with tonight's fix-is-in $10,000,000 to construct his own luxury office suite.
440
There has been no formal announcement of David White's political plans, but a second primary challenge to Gahan seems likely. There'll be plenty of time to consider the implications, so we can leave it there for now. Suffice to say that things may be getting interesting. All together now:
#FireGahan2019
JULY TOP TEN
442
The broad outlines of an anti-anchor electoral coalition in 2019 increasingly are becoming visible. With each of Gahan’s grandiose and self-referential expenditures, the disgruntlement spreads.
The city’s lofty elites are over-confident, and the governing clique suffers from profound “institutional inbreeding.” The louder Gahan’s boasting becomes, and the greater his posturing, the more threadbare his personality cult’s clothing.
It’s true that Pinocchio Jeff will have pots of money in 2019, but the successful mobilization of Reisz refuseniks convinces me that we’re putting together a solid network for communication and cooperation.
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447
Seems he would have known about "old and antiquated systems" all the way back in 2017.
If he did know, why wait for these systems to collapse before doing something?
If he didn't know, then isn't $125k per year a bit much to pay in salary to someone to be reactive rather than proactive for the sake of political propaganda when the well-being of residents (not residences) is at stake?
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485
It's nice to see City Hall's efforts to address the ever-widening Compassion Gap by sending the Rev. Toran to deal with the media instead of Gauleiter Duggins, who has been too busy blaming Bob Lane for Duggins' own multiplicity of shortcomings to notice that living, breathing humans are in need of attention.
It's a kinder, gentler public housing putsch, wouldn't you say?
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490
Old-timers will notice the presence of "comfort beers," "neglected classics" and "greatest beer hits" alongside beers like Stroh's, Old Style and Little Kings. The juxtaposition is purely intentional.
Indeed, it's a more egalitarian list than I would have written at the peak of polemical fervor, with fewer local craft brews; as noted previously, in my view the revolution has succeeded in large measure, and there are numerous American craft beers being vended in downtown New Albany.
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501
Can anyone remember a single instance of a Team Gahan operative admitting to error? Cults of personality are like that, you know.
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530
I’d like you to meet Joe Phillips.
Joe and I have spent considerably more than a year discussing the concept henceforth to be known as Pints&union. While I contributed to the theoretical vision and will be representing the pub’s beer on a daily basis, it needs to be understood that Joe’s the main man behind Pints&union.
I’m the rhythm guitarist, a supporting actor, or maybe just a guy who fervently wishes his friend and former employee to succeed in this entrepreneurial venture, and will do whatever is necessary to contribute to this end. I'm heavy into Pints&union -- I'm just not the big guy. That's more than fine with me.
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597
Do you really think anyone would bear the brunt of the cost to develop in the wrong place if not eased by public subsidies? Equally obvious is the connection between those public subsidies, the mayor, and a firm like Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz.
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600
At a time when public housing residents face daily insults from their colonial overlords as a prelude to demolition, Team Gahan brags about million-dollar condos in the middle of a strip mine.
Amid the blather and propaganda, we can be sure of one truthful eventuality: the volume of stormwater runoff coming from Summit Springs will be matched only by the amount of kickbacks flowing into the mayor's campaign piggy bank.
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646
Have there been public incentives and subsidies involved?
Look at it this way: the city
is paying for the road, and short of a privately financed gondola, there can be no hilltop strip mine development without a road past the white elephants (I mean, bison) to the, er, summit.
Want to bet the city's own 8 percent rule won't apply to living spaces within the Gahan Memorial Tumescence Tower?
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1,247
Let the record show two verified food and drink establishments debuting in downtown New Albany on Friday, July 27: Longboard's Taco & Tiki and the Double Barrel bar. There may even be a third; more on that some other time.
