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)

The Great Roundabout Turnabout of 2013 and pedestrian friendliness.

I didn't see the newspaper's coverage of the Great Roundabout Turnabout of 2013 until after yesterday's column was written and published.

ON THE AVENUES: Roundabouts make the politicians really ring.

 ... These activists asserted their right to some degree of neighborhood autonomy, and because their councilman almost surely understood that it was time for a favor to be returned, the point was made, and the mayor visited their homes to concede it. It may be the single most important lesson of the year, and a template I hope is being grasped in Midtown neighborhoods, where the very existence of one-way arterial streets affects quality of life, property values and fundamental prospects for renewal as feet are dragged, Main Street is fluffed, and City Hall’s eyes are averted.

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.

After all, we've spent many years arguing that the current layout of the downtown street grid should be changed for PRECISELY THE SAME REASON, and vindication ... well, it's a nice thing, indeed.

Roundabout scrapped from New Albany road project; Mt. Tabor, Klerner Lane Intersection likely to remain a four-way stop, by Daniel Suddeath

Improvements to Mt. Tabor Road won’t include a roundabout at the Klerner Lane intersection. The city has pulled the roundabout from its proposed construction design, as many residents opposed the idea during a September public hearing including the four property owners whose land would be affected by the traffic circle.

“We determined the impact was going to be severe on those properties,” New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan said this week ...

 ... “We’re going to continue to listen to people and move the project forward,” Gahan said ...

 ... District 6 Councilman Scott Blair credited the Gahan administration for listening to the residents in the neighborhood, as the majority opposed the roundabout.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Blair said, as he added removing the roundabout from the plan will alleviate some of the concerns of residents in the area. “I’m satisfied with the process and the way things have transpired.”

ON THE AVENUES: Roundabouts make the politicians really ring.

ON THE AVENUES: Roundabouts make the politicians really ring.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Earlier in 2013, New Albany’s planners announced a long-gestating “improvement” project for Mt. Tabor Road.

Residents in the vicinity promptly objected to the plans, noting presciently that proposed measures to reduce traffic congestion would have the real-world effect of putting more cars on the road at faster speeds, compromising safety and reducing their neighborhood’s quality of life.

In short, they’d spotted the likelihood of induced demand, and decided to press the case against it.

The neighborhood activists found an eager ally in 6th district councilman Scott Blair, who lives nearby. He assisted them in the orchestration of a city council appearance, in which elected officials were petitioned for a reconsideration of the improvement project. Specifically, a roundabout proposed for the intersection of Mt. Tabor Road and Klerner Lane came under intense criticism, and not merely owing to the selective logic of the NIMBY. Rather, these were very good points.

If the four-way stop at this intersection functioned so well amid existing traffic that there had been few, if any, accidents reported there in years, why construct a roundabout that would require a larger topographical footprint than the current working arrangement?

And, by extension, wouldn’t the “need” for a roundabout serve as tacit acknowledgement from planners that far from regulating traffic in the neighborhood, the coming “improvements” actually would be increasing it?

There came a magical moment when the words were spoken aloud (paraphrasing): Won’t these changes bring more traffic from people using Mt. Tabor to pass through to somewhere else?

Yep. In a nutshell.

Veteran council watchers agree: Nothing tilts the legislative balance quite like large numbers of citizens crowding the inadequate council chambers. Public forums are one thing, and demonstrating at a regularly scheduled meeting something else entirely. It brings out the fears in their eyes, and the tears in mine.

There is little doubt that CM Blair was being quite savvy, indeed, in the sense of leveraging a positive resolution to his district’s roundabout issue by transforming it into one of those political chits, to be redeemed in the form of a favor returned for previous support … say, for an aquatics center.

Well, this is the way the game is played, isn’t it, and these thoughts came back to me this week when I received a tweet from one of the Mt. Tabor activists.

“Ding dong the roundabout is DEAD! Now hopefully one way streets follow.”

Roger couldn’t agree more, but I was curious: How did he know, seeing as I’d not yet heard the news through normal channels?

“The four of us on the corner received a personal visit from the mayor Sunday evening. Nothing in the paper that I know.”

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.

These activists asserted their right to some degree of neighborhood autonomy, and because their councilman almost surely understood that it was time for a favor to be returned, the point was made, and the mayor visited their homes to concede it. It may be the single most important lesson of the year, and a template I hope is being grasped in Midtown neighborhoods, where the very existence of one-way arterial streets affects quality of life, property values and fundamental prospects for renewal as feet are dragged, Main Street is fluffed, and City Hall’s eyes are averted.

Mt. Tabor residents, I salute you. You clarified some very important points.

Midtown residents, just this: See what we’re trying to say?

Quality of life might be a valid concept, and it might also be a cliché. Quite possibly, it is both. But one recurring feature of life in New Albany is that rational definitions always pale in comparison with organizational skill and raw bile.

And selective hardball on the part of a councilman doesn’t hurt, either. It can be distasteful … but like invasive surgery, sometimes it is necessary. Shall we count favors?

---

Throughout the year, the newspaper’s Amanda Beam has been writing a weekly “Bicentennial column,” which I often enjoyed prior to the Alabama Pop-Up Paywall’s construction.

(Mr. Hanson, tear down this wall)

In her final installment, at least until we commence the People’s Bicentennial celebration in 2017 (the 200th anniversary of the city’s actual incorporation), Amanda looks to the future – and remember, when it comes to future versus past, 1 for 52 is a far better batting average than Bob Caesar can muster.

New Albany residents, business owners and community leaders were asked to answer the question, “where do you see New Albany 100 years from now?” Below are their responses.

Respondents include Ed Clere, Jessica Knable, David Barksdale, Alice Miles and Dan Coffey … and your faithful blog columnist. I was hesitant to offer a reply until I’d conferred with the Green Mouse, who has seen it all.

“In 2113, the tiny number of white-skinned speakers of English left in New Albany will gather together during Cinco de Mayo at the usual spot by the Fork in the Road sculpture, decant their bottles of NABC Quadcentennial Ale, and say: ‘You know, 100 years ago there were one-way streets here. That’s amazing. It’s a wonder they ever figured it out; but after all, even a stopped clock is right twice a century.’”

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

There was a slim agenda at last evening's city council meeting, and so it lasted twice as long as it should have. This is not unusual; rather, this is New Albany, where we're all here because we're not all there -- and city government is the ironclad rule that proves the steadfast rule.

My pal Mark and me -- well, you know, we wuz miffed.

As council regulars, we're quite accustomed to waiting until the end of the session for the opportunity to speak our minds, or at any rate, what's left of them. But on Monday night, unbeknownst to us, a special treat was in store, as my (Grant Line Road work neighborhood) 6th district council person Scott Blair had artfully stage-managed an appearance by Mt. Tabor Road residents, better to flood the meeting and protest proposed road improvements to their vicinity.

Of course to Blair, it isn't only the group's cherished status as constituents which compels skullduggery with the agenda, by moving their presentation forward. It's also an issue of specific shared preconceptions, which actually are more generalized than Blair currently is able to grasp.

Hence, my existence s gadfly, and my mandate to remind him at every opportunity of certain repetitive lapses in his random application of principle. It's a dirty job, but someone must do it, and two martinis provide exquisite encouragement.

Granted, it's easy for a conceptual European like me to laugh derisively at the native New Albanian aversion to roundabouts (and in this instance, sidewalks), but of course, these Mt. Tabor Road residents have a very good point overall.

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.

Thus, CM Blair's desired choreography achieved two unexpected, salutary results: It meant I was able to speak nearer the beginning, and the Mt. Tabor Road group succeeded in forcefully making my point for me, in the sense that their argument precisely mirrors the contemporary plea by inner city residents to convert one-way arterials to two-way neighborhood-friendly streets.

The primary differences are two in number: Downtowners have been afflicted by the mayhem for close to half a century, and CM Blair doesn't understand this affliction because he does not understand what downtown urban living means.

I persist in thinking that's he's capable of learning. I'll continue to earnestly, humbly and yet determinedly assist him in this quest.

Unfortunately, council veteran Kevin Zurschmiede chose last night's meeting to reveal his own difficulties in learning, declaring "I'm not educated enough," and furthermore, insisting that his ignorance of current events absolves him from attempting to fathom them. But was it really KZ, or was Mark Seabrook still wearing his mildewed KZ costume from Halloween?

Either way, I shall refrain from criticizing the councilman's incisive self-knowledge. All of us know ourselves best, each and every one.

Zurschmiede's revelation happened as the council discussed CM John Gonder's R-13-15, a "resolution in support of efforts to increase participation in the new health care law," known colloquially as "the governor's ball is a son of a bitch" resolution ... wait, make it "governor's," not "governor's ball," seeing as the former is a gubernatorial inadequacy and the latter merely a bicentennial atrocity.

One of CM Blair's favorite approval stamps is "no brainer," and Gonder's resolution proved just such a "no brainer" phenomenon, one so incredibly obvious that even Bob Caesar favored it with his once-per-year nod at vaguely resembling a Democrat; the final vote was 7 in favor and 2 opposed. Oopsing the resolution was Zurschmiede, who admitted he couldn't comprehend it and thought others should follow his lead, and ... (sighhhh) ... Blair, who yet again reprised his periodic selective principle wherein what isn't the council's business should be avoided unless Blair ratifies an item as council business.

I'd link to the newspaper's coverage, but the Pensioners' Paywall precludes me from doing so. It's there, at the website, if readers have not exceeded their limit.