Our big fat Hibbardendum (1): Follow the PAC-besotted usual suspects' beak wetting in the $87 million schools referendum.

As a preface to this daily ritualistic banging of heads against award-winning splash park water slides, has anyone noticed that D.J. Hines serves as a member of the NA-FC school board member right up until his testimonials are needed for the pro-referendum effort, at which point he reverts yet again to humble real estate mogul?

Do they really believe we don't notice things like this? But Tom Jones over at the Hartfield Company -- that guy can still effing bring it.

It's not unusual at all, so the Courier-Journal's Kirsten Clark follows the money, including D.J.'s cool thousand, in a survey of the most concentrated lobbying effort on behalf of beak-wetting-as-usual in Floyd County since ... since ... well, since when?

This well-lubricated, pile-driven offensive might well be classified as sui generis -- and you can look it up, Shane, though I doubt you'l bother. The underlining is mine.

Campaigns ramp up spending in school referendum

Political action committees on both sides of a $87-million referendum for Floyd County schools have upped their organization and spending from last year after a similar attempt to improve school buildings failed by a narrow margin.

"The Families for Floyd County PAC has done things differently this time," said Michele Day, an organizer of pro-referendum PAC, which is campaigning on behalf of New Albany-Floyd County Schools. "The PAC is considerably larger than it was previously."

On the other side of the issue, a Greenville-based citizens group this year formed its own PAC, not so much to be more competitive with Families for Floyd County, but just as a safety precaution, said P.J. Moore, speaking on behalf of Preserve and Protect Floyd County. While the group spent more than last year, it's still less than a tenth of the pro-referendum PAC.

"They've doubled down. They've increased the bond. They've hired a PR firm so they can be slick about it," Moore said. "It's David versus Goliath, and Goliath is cheating."

Families for Floyd County has nearly doubled its spending over last year – which organizers at the time called a “grassroots” effort of less than $10,000 – with tens of thousands of dollars poured into mailers, signs and other advertising, records show. In contrast, Preserve and Protect Floyd County spent just under $1,800, records show.

Moore's "David versus Goliath" analogy is apt, and while my previous comparison to the pre-Brexit mood in the United Kingdom still resonates ...

ON THE AVENUES: It’s our big fat Hibbardendum, and Jeff Gahan is carrying the superintendent across the threshold as Metro United Way tosses rice and One Southern Indiana steals all the liquor.

... the "leave" campaign across the pond was able to match the sheer weight of monied "remain" endorsements from society's best and brightest with invaluable assistance from the tabloid press.

There has been no such counter-balance during our most recent referendum push, with the possible exception of NA Confidential's persistent gutter journalism, because as Mayor Jeff Gahan once noted, we've "never done anything in a positive manner to help the city of New Albany.”

Hear hear! But enough about the wording on NAC's ceremonial plaque, to be nailed to the alley facing a deforested verge during the approaching end times, and back to the referendum itself.

Did it fail "by a narrow margin" last time out?

Not exactly. Here's an excerpt from WDRB's coverage in May, 2015.

New Albany Floyd County Schools tax referendum fails in Indiana primary

Voters in Floyd County rejected an $80 million plan to build two new schools and renovate three others in a special referendum on the Indiana primary ballot Tuesday. The measure was voted down with almost 55 percent of voters saying no. According to Floyd County's election returns, 5,524 ballots were cast, with 2,531 voting 'yes' and 2,993 voting 'no'.

Granted, it was a primary election, and vote totals were low (you don't think Bruce "Bags Packed" Hibbard gamed that slot on purpose, do you?), yet it's inaccurate to characterize a 55-45 tally as "narrow." That's landslide territory these days, in this sad-sack country.

As of Saturday, more than 18,000 early votes in the 2016 general election have been cast in Floyd County. Will far heavier voting during a presidential election season alter the percentages? Obviously, we have no public polling numbers on the referendum, and Nate Silver cannot participate in the discussion.

I've no way of handicapping the referendum vote, and won't try. The Green Mouse says Hibbard will be down the road in 2017, yea or nay. One local wag put it like this way:

Don't want to say the referendum is dead ... but it has gone to a farm in the country where it can run and play out the rest of its days.

I'm not so sure, but if "no" wins again, I'd advise all and sundry to take a look at the off-the-grid methodology of Preserve and Protect Floyd County, a virtually invisible PAC with almost no electronic presence, which still manages to inspire fear and loathing on the part of community pillars. I like medicine like that.

Waiter, I'll have some of what they're having, please.

Back to Brother Tom, in a track recorded during the early days of consolidation.

What's new, pussycat?

Nothing, and that's the problem.

See also:

Our big fat Hibbardendum (2): The more things stay the same, or our school bond referendum, 2016.

Our big fat Hibbardendum (3): City voters, take note, because just as in 2015, the NA-FC bond referendum is a "driving oriented, suburban school model."

ON THE AVENUES: It’s our big fat Hibbardendum, and Jeff Gahan is carrying the superintendent across the threshold as Metro United Way tosses rice and One Southern Indiana steals all the liquor.

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode VII, Citizens for a Better New Albany.

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode VII, Citizens for a Better New Albany.

By Nick Vaughn, Guest Columnist

Citizens for a Better New Albany is a Political Action Committee that I have formed in order to promote and advocate for ideals and issues that are important to everyday New Albanians. This is something that I think is generally lacking here in our city. Not just a PAC but a general lack of everyday citizen’s views being fairly and evenly represented by the officials they elect.

That is why I believe this non partisan, not-affiliated-to-any-candidate PAC can pick up the slack and begin to put issues at the center of the scene instead of vague platitudes and feel good talking points.
I envision this PAC as being the advocate for the everyday citizen. Pretty soon we will have the capabilities of doing polling for issues and candidates, the ability to phone bank and canvass for issues New Albanians care about, and be able to advertise in the newspaper, Internet, and social media.

I would be remiss if I did not at least acknowledge the fact that this will cost a good chunk of change. Instead of being funded by special interest groups or just one or two wealthy individuals, Citizens for a Better New Albany wants to be able to receive a good majority of funding from everyday people like you. I'm not asking you for $1,000, or even $100. But a small donation of $5, $10, $25, etc. could make a huge difference in our effort to bring issues to center stage.

Furthermore, once we get a website up and begin receiving and spending money, we will periodically be posting progress reports that show exactly how we are spending the money you donate. We won't list our donors on the website (although please note that we have to list you in campaign finance reports that are public record), instead we will be focusing on exactly how the funds will be spent.

As it stands right now, we need to raise about $300 in order to create a good website and be able to promote and advertise the PAC in an effective manner.

For more information regarding Citizens for a Better New Albany, please go to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CBNPAC/

For donation inquiries, please email us at ourcity47150@gmail.com.

Please invite your friends to like our Facebook page! We want to reach as many people organically before we start pouring money into social media advertising. And remember, when sharing posts use #ItsOurCity so that we can easily connect with you.

And with that, I leave you with the quote of the day:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -- Winston Churchill

ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

There is a monolithic message adorning the west-facing side of the former Anchor Range & Stove building, which for many years has been owned by Padgett, Inc.

The banner is two stories tall, almost as wide, and probably can be seen from Skyline Drive in the Knobs.

It reads:

Zurschmiede for Mayor

“Conservative Principles Driving Progress”

Paid for by New Albanians for Common Sense Government PAC

The last time I saw an inscription this large was in Moscow, back during Communist times – something about the critical importance of the five-year plan, the threat of American imperialism, or some such – but I mention this phenomenon not as the pretext for a series of “size really doesn’t matter when it comes to happy endings” jokes.

Rather, it’s all about the nomenclature.

You see, ideas do matter, and as human beings, we concretely express our ideas with words, and words are building blocks. It’s how we move beyond mental abstraction to communication, and from primitivism to progress.

So, while Adam insists I’m “not a serious candidate” for mayor, and Jeff dismisses me as having done nothing “in a positive manner for New Albany” – concurrent with the entire Padgett industrial enterprise differing with my viewpoint on the primacy of humans versus trucks on our street grid, most often by reverting to the non-verbal, as with their middle fingers held aloft, just look at the way all of them have started using these two words.

New Albanian.

Guess who coined that descriptor?

Until the New Albanian Brewing Company came along in 1994, did anyone in these parts ever routinely choose the words “New Albanian” to describe someone from New Albany?

It is possible they did so in a random or periodic sense, though let’s face facts: NABC’s adaptation of the term has spilled over into popular usage and acceptance, hence the identity of the slush fund sponsoring Padgett’s overwrought signage.

You’re welcome.

It’s nice to have a legacy, isn’t it? If only there were royalties at play.

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Meanwhile, local Democrats and Republicans alike have been using the hashtag #CountTheWays in social media.

Gahan is busy counting the number of bright, shiny gifts he’s given us, always remembering to scrape the price tag off with his dainty finger nail before affixing the ribbon and grinning like the fatherly potentate he imagines himself to be.

Zurschmiede’s hard-working subalterns have been busy counting their own ways in rebuttal, often deploying phrases originating … from elsewhere. Since I’m feeling charitable, I’ll use the word “subconsciously” to describe their passage from source to meme.

I can live with it, even without the screenplay credits. After all, I’m a content creator. For me, the hashtag is #CountTheIronies, which embraces both the major political parties as they’ve reacted to my presence in the race.

You might think that as a European-style social democrat, my independent mayoral candidacy would have the effect of pulling our right-leaning local DemoDixieDisneycrats leftward.

Instead, the party establishment has responded by doubling down on its bizarre love affair with trickle-down Reaganomics, conveniently substituting ruinously expensive quality-of-life “wants” (water parks, beautification projects) for steroidal 1980s-era military spending in the partisan broken budget analogy.

Concurrently, the city's Republicans have gleefully adopted my platform points, pushing the GOP as an entity steadily left, toward the center. It’s surreal for the GOP to issue ritual denunciations of crony capitalism, corporate welfare and trickle-down Reaganomics, and recent promises to create a "user-friendly" city are enough to make dispassionate space aliens believe they’ve finally embraced two-way streets, too.

However, Padgett’s Soviet-scale banners and PAC money make such a conversion extremely unlikely.

All of this leaves this unrepentant Bernie Sanders fan as the only mayoral candidate eager to speak openly about specific, critical economic development needs, as opposed to quality of life wants.

Ironies aside, I'll just stay where I am, over here, comfortably left of center. If the Republicans are more eager to join me than the Democrats, then it just makes the irony even more delicious – although it should make a fair number of Democrats who ought to know better profoundly uncomfortable.

They’re probably too filled with mute nostril agony to even notice.

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As it pertains to the mayoral race, the New Albanian (that’s me) is an outsider, insurgent and underdog. Apparently he’s also a wild card. Both party camps seem to be basing their electoral predictions on varying estimates of the votes I’ll extract, and from where.

But in a political system built and maintained for the benefit of two major parties, an independent surely must take votes from somewhere, almost by definition. That’s why we refer to the existence of voters who’ve been known to display autonomous tendencies, like thoughtfully considering individual candidates and their ideas outside the confines of the archaic phrase, “pulling the straight party lever.”

I believe these discerning voters can see quite clearly what I’ve brought to the table during this campaign. It’s a principled alternative, and a third way to approach local governance, one necessary because the two-party system here is tired and broken.

For most of us, governance isn’t about party affiliation, anyway. It’s about managing competently, planning rationally and producing results every single day – right here in New Albany -- where we live and work and play.

I’m not a politician, but 25 years as a local independent business owner have equipped me with a useful tool box. Local independent business owners strive to maintain a level playing field for consumers. We listen, accommodate, troubleshoot, manage employees and solve problems as they arise. We create tangible value from scratch, as with the American craft beer industry.

I’ve also traveled throughout America and Europe, paying attention to life and learning how things work. I’ve probably attended more council meetings than some elected council persons, and maintained this public affairs blog day in and day out, for the past 11 years.

The New Albanian (me again) is uniquely placed to break the two-party stalemate in New Albany and Floyd County, and to be a bridge to the next generation of leaders. I have no political party to serve, only the people of New Albany. As mayor, neither my name nor the names of elected officials will appear on plaques.

“The City of New Albany” means all the people, not just a privileged few. It’s going to be about us, not me.

As for the ramifications of my effort, it may or may not be true that Kevin Zurschmiede will be the ultimate beneficiary, but the ballot is set, and there's nothing I can do about the likelihood of Gahan's ego-driven vanity candidacy siphoning votes from the only genuine Democrat left in the mayoral race.

That Democrat is me, and conscience is key.

I’ve written about rumblings of threats and retaliation emanating from the mayor, his minions and Democratic Party elders. It is unfortunate when "group-think" is allowed to digress into intimidation, but apparently it has.

Know that if the local Democratic Party machine wishes to be spiteful and vindictive, it's the machine's problem, not ours. It remains a mystery how the party's chairman contorts reality so as to square his pious bromides about "respectful" candidates with Dan “Copperhead” Coffey's continued presence on the ballot as a Democrat -- but that's his problem, and a huge one.

Ultimately, it remains my position that ballots and basic choice are matters of personal conscience, and I've neither the desire, nor any solid reason, to tamper with such. If you support my independent candidacy, I'd rather you be able to express your preference openly, but at the same time, given the current atmosphere, I understand perfectly well if you cannot.

Some voters who ordinarily find themselves occupying a "side" based on factors beyond the actual issues (family, habit, compulsion at work) may choose to preserve the outward appearance of conformity, while resolving internally to opt out of politics as usual and vote differently -- independently -- in 2015.

If so, merely let conscience be your guide. That's why the ballots are secret, and no one should be looking over your shoulder, anyway.

If we’re voting as New Albanians, as opposed to Democrats and Republicans, then the choice is perfectly logical. It's doing what’s right for the whole city, and not only one or the other of our two clubs.

---

Recent columns:

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Almost two years later, Mr. Gahan has yet to plug in this clock, and so it's time for him to clock out.

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Dear Neighbor: If you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: Lanesville Heritage Weekend comes around again.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: When even Mitt Romney can run to the left of New Albany’s Democrats, it's a very big problem.

August 27: ON THE AVENUES: Whips, chains and economic development (2010).

What others are saying: Collins, Benedetti, Indiana Equality Action and the 5th district council race.

As the days pass in route to May's primary election, I'm providing periodic candidate statements of substance, mostly unretouched, as lifted from social media and news reports. Familiar gems such as "yard signs win elections, not people" and "donate to my campaign first, and maybe I'll have something of merit to say much, much later" will be omitted. That's because it is my aim to determine whether our declared candidates have anything to say at all, and I'll quote all candidates, from any and all parties, whether or not they're in a contested race. Just promising change and new ideas without divulging them won't cut the mustard, aspirants.

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When is the last time a statewide Indiana PAC has gotten involved with a New Albany city council race? It seems to be happening right now, if this direct e-mail received earlier this evening is any indication. It offers rhetorical support to Democratic candidate Dustin Collins, who is challenging incumbent Diane Benedetti in the 5th district primary.

It can't be said we didn't see it coming: What they're saying ... about each other.

Nate Nahler is the president of Indiana Equality Action, an "Indiana non-profit corporation consisting of individuals and organizations dedicated to advancing equal rights for and fighting discrimination against all Hoosier citizens regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity."

The text of Nahler's e-mail follows.

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Dear Roger,

Over the past few weeks, we have seen the reputation of the State of Indiana dragged through the mud by politicians ignoring the will of the voters and pandering to their base. With RFRA being passed by a super majority in the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Pence, we realize now more than ever the importance of supporting elected officials who reflect our values.

In New Albany, a sitting City Councilwoman--who abstained when a resolution to oppose HJR3 was brought before the New Albany City Council--has attempted to slander her primary challenger's reputation to solidify her political position. Those closest to the Councilwoman have begun knocking on doors and asking supporters of Dustin Collins, her primary challenger, whether they know he’s gay. Is this what we have come to expect out of our elected representatives?

Today I write in support of Dustin and the vision he has for New Albany and the State of Indiana. Dustin (a former member of the military, former staff member for the Freedom Indiana campaign, and a former staff member for the Indiana Democratic Party) has already made many gains in the City of New Albany. Even before the upcoming elections, citizens are already approaching him with their concerns and he is already beginning to solve them....imagine what he could do once elected!

Dustin can't win this election on his own, he needs your help! All of us must stand up and support these candidates and take our home back! This is where you can help. Please consider volunteering or making a financial donation so we can work to fight back against this whisper campaign. Anything you can do to help the campaign succeed is very much appreciated!

Indiana Equality Action
PO Box 20621
Indianapolis, IN 46220
888.567.0750