Charlestown residents to John Neace (and Bob Hall): "We ask you now: please abandon your plans to raze and replace our homes in Pleasant Ridge."

Are Deaf Gahan's ears burning yet?

Your desire to bulldoze our entire neighborhood is neither just nor transparent. It is unjust to tell us–after decades of pouring care and love into our homes and being responsible homeowners, who have every right to keep what we’ve worked so hard to own–that we have to give everything up so you can make money.

And when you work out a backdoor deal with Mayor Hall, designed to drive our property values down so that eminent domain will be cheap and easy–that’s just immoral.

We love our homes. Your properties may be rotting around us, but we’re not going anywhere.

The web site address is here: DearJohnNeace.com

Timing of anti-Pleasant Ridge development banner removal questioned, by Danielle Grady (Tom May the Hard Way)

CHARLESTOWN — For around two weeks, the truck with an illegal banner sat on Harold Goodlett’s property.

“John Neace: Stop destroying our neighborhood,” it read, underneath an even larger address for a website telling the story of the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood.

But it wasn’t until the truck and banner were moved to a prominent location along Charlestown’s Founder’s Day parade route that a property owner received a call from the city, requesting that the sign be removed lest a citation be issued.

The city is calling the timing a coincidence, a sudden realization by the building commissioner that the sign violated the city’s zoning ordinance, brought upon by research on a separate, but similar violation. The Pleasant Ridge Neighborhood Association doesn’t think that’s the real impetus.

If Dan Canon is railing against the Republican mayor in Charlestown over housing issues for the working poor, but not the Democratic mayor in New Albany, there's a big problem.

I thought it was clear where matters stood, and then it wasn't. Something changed for me in September, 2017.

That's when my preferred 9th district congressional aspirant Dan Canon came down fast, forcefully (and correctly) on Mayor Bob Hall of Charlestown, who happens to be a Republican. Canon's rhetoric was blazing as he considered the implications of Hall's Pleasant Ridge cleansing fiasco.

Unbelievable. This guy has no shame about driving the working class out of the city by destroying entire neighborhoods. I am trying to avoid the internet this weekend but this is so appalling I can't stand it.

Mayor Hall: consider that if the torches and pitchforks come (and let me be clear that progressives are trying to stop that from happening), they are coming first for elected officials who wipe out the working poor to accommodate the wealthy. You can only take so much from your own people. Taking their homes is going too damn far.

At the time I was inspired, because everything Canon wrote about the situation at Pleasant Ridge applied just as accurately to Mayor Jeff Gahan's forcible seizure of the New Albany Housing Authority -- and still does, even more so in the wake of David Duggins' recent termination-worthy intimidation tactics.

As I thought in September, surely candidate Canon was ready to apply the same logic to Gahan's putsch, and to lead. As we all know by now, this hasn't happened.

Yes, Canon attended the We Are New Albany candlelight vigil, so there's that. However, in the main, it appears that when Bob Hall attacks the working poor, that's bad, but when Jeff Gahan attacks the working poor ... it's largely unmentionable.

First, a look at Canon's response to the issue during his recent town hall meeting in New Albany, as reported by the newspaper. Then, a few thoughts.

Canon candidate conducts town hall, by Erin Walden(News and Tribune)

Addresses public housing, school shootings

NEW ALBANY — Congressional candidate Dan Canon met with voters Saturday at a town hall at Clean Socks Hope and two key issues arose: public housing in New Albany and school shootings in America.

... The public housing situation in New Albany drew at least two Southern Indiana residents to the town hall. Aaron Fairbanks, a volunteer who has canvassed for Canon, attended because he says he believes in Canon but needs to know where he stands on housing.

“There’s definitely an issue with [public housing] in New Albany … With government cooperation, [the government] has the ability to reduce homelessness so that’s an issue I’m incredibly interested in — fair and affordable housing. I want to get a more concrete idea of where he sits on that,” Fairbanks said.

The issue, Fairbanks said, is the plan to demolish some of the public housing units with no concrete plan to replace those units.

“Having lived in public housing before, it is a bit personal,” he said. He knows that all the blame can't be placed on the local government, but coming up with solutions, and dollars, at the federal level to put into public housing would be a good place to start.

“Basically without knowing exactly where Dan [Canon] sits, I don’t know know if he would be for a remedy that would bolster public housing stock, and that’s what I’m interested in,” Fairbanks said.

Candace Brewer, chairperson for "We Are New Albany," a group formed to oppose the plan to demolish the housing units, also attended the town hall to check out Canon’s stance on housing.

“... It’s an absolute fact people will be made homeless [from this plan]. It’s my number one issue right now,” Brewer said. According to Brewer, she doesn’t care which party a candidate belongs to as long as they fight for the working class.

Even though what’s happening at the New Albany Housing Authority is localized, Canon says solving community problems at the federal level is possible with a representative in the House who is in touch with their constituents.

“We get into talking so much about what is happening at a national level and at Washington D.C., what the national topic du jour is. Congressional candidates on both sides of the aisle run a sincere risk of losing focus on local issues. More often than not the federal government has a big role in alleviating some of the problems going on on the ground in their district,” he said.

Most of what he said he hears in the town halls, such as a comprehensive solution to the opioid crisis or a handle on healthcare, the “issues people talk about at their kitchen table every day” as Canon put it, are solvable through legislative action.

Canon says there are several ways to bring real change to the housing issue. The first would be to “simply provide more resources to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other agencies that are dealing with the problem of homelessness and housing in general. Beyond that, education and outreach to end chronic homeless and poverty" would counteract homelessness, something he says is lacking in the current leadership.

On social media, Jeff Gillenwater dissects this.

Canon goes to Washington, advocates for more federal housing funding along with the rest of a platform that has little to no traction with Democratic leadership locally or nationally. Jeff Gahan and local Democrats maintain their positions. Canon takes credit for advocacy, Gahan takes credit for “revitalizing” public housing areas, and half the previous public housing residents still end up on the street. If criticized, Canon says there’s nothing he could’ve said or done as it’s a local issue, Gahan blames the feds, and Democratic leaders and attendant sycophants will determine if that’s good governance by whether or not they get re-elected. So it goes, here and elsewhere.

Paraphrasing another thought of Gillenwater's, we all understand that Canon speaking out about public housing in New Albany right now could help make a positive difference for those residents. Many of us are suggesting he should. If Canon is railing against the Republican mayor in Charlestown over housing issues for the working poor, but not the Democratic mayor in New Albany, there's a big problem.

In fact, it's an even larger problem than Adam Dickey's behind-the-scenes string-pulling.

If I'm to vote for a genuine progressive on the left, then shouldn't the progressivism be equally applied, across the board, come what may?

Or is it more important that local DemoDixieDisneycrats retain their sinecures, even if it means cynically abandoning whatever shards of progressive thinking that somehow seep through Dickey's cordon of self-interested censorship?

New Albany's traditional older white male small-pond power brokers, a slight majority of whom remain nominally Democratic (albeit rarely democratic), have no interest whatever in Canon's enunciation of progressive political thinking. They're laughing at him behind his back, because everyone knows that politics in Floyd County is about beak-wetting and not ideology.

Except they're perfectly willing to to piggyback on Canon's anti-Trumpista platform, because it distracts the younger Democrats who might otherwise see through the public housing putsch, thus providing the Elders with breathing space to fulfill their mythology-fueled dream of slaying the resource-sucking vampire of public housing -- arguably the single biggest straw man in this city's ignoble history of intellectual underachievement. 

Fact is, they'll turn against Canon in a Eastridge Drive Minute. They're using him, not the other way around. What actually needs slaying is the local Democratic Party; then it can be rebuilt into something that matters -- and if Canon might be elected to Congress with the local party staying exactly as it is, what good would that do us? 

I'm completely assured that if elected, Canon intends to stand in opposition to Trumpism, and will be a progressive advocate. Suits me, but I can't vote for him on these stances alone.

To avoid hypocrisy, Canon also needs to oppose local Gahanism, which has been proven by the mayor's public housing putsch and personnel choices to be indistinguishable in its degradation from the moral rot oozing from across the aisle.

I don't know if Canon will, or if he won't; ironically, just like my vote.

NAHA vs Pleasant Ridge: Deaf Gahan is appalled that he didn't think of mass taserings first.

We're still trying to understand why a public official clocking in at $120K per annum thinks it's hilarious to threaten a resident of public housing with shooting/tasering, merely because the resident exercised his rights to free speech and assembly.

Maybe it's because in David Duggins' bloodshot eyes, they're not really people: We don't need a TASER Tsar at public housing.

Jeff Gahan placed Duggins in this position of alleged stewardship trust at NAHA, and the ethically challenged Taser Tsar has run through his first allotment of Dear Leader's trust. The tank's empty.

It's theoretically possible that Team Gahan might publicly explain and take responsibility for this latest fiasco before Thursday afternoon, when ON THE AVENUES will break it down -- and while we're busy handicapping, perhaps anyone walking on the northern Spring Street sidewalk today should use caution lest a stray piano drop from the third floor of Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

Meanwhile over in Charlestown, where the mayor doesn't even try to pretend he's a Democrat, there is more ugliness over a very NAHA-like situation, with the primary difference between the Pleasant Ridge and NAHA land grabs being that public housing residents in New Albany have even less clout than targeted "non-citizens" in Charlestown.

According to our 9th district Democratic congressional candidates, Pleasant Ridge is a very bad deal, indeed, and deserving of denunciation.

My advice to them: Take a good, hard look at the interim director of NAHA. People there need you now, not after the primary. Isn't a terroristic threat just the same irrespective of who utters it -- and shouldn't there be a higher bar for a public official like Duggins?

You can only hold your noses for so long, right?

Or, does shit stink only when it cascades to the ground from the posterior of a Republican?

Lawsuit accuses Charlestown officials, developer of extortion scheme to buy land for a song, by Justin Sayers (Louisville Courier Journal)

Some property owners accuse Charlestown, Indiana city officials and others of an extortion scheme that used fines to pressure them to sell their properties well under market value.

The federal lawsuit filed Friday claims that nine property management companies and landlords were persuaded to sell more than 100 Pleasant Ridge rental properties, most of them for only $10,000 each, to Pleasant Ridge Redevelopment LLC, the company hired by the city to redevelop the low-income neighborhood.

Prior to the sale, the city of Charlestown levied code-enforcement fines on the homes, some of which amounted to thousands of dollars a day for the owners. Once the properties were sold, the fines were waived, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court in New Albany.

The plaintiffs claim their constitutional rights were violated under the equal rights protection act. They also argue that coercing owners to sell to a private entity violates federal anti-corruption laws.

Named as defendants were Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall, members of the city council and public works board, the Charlestown Redevelopment Commission and the development team, including the chairman of Pleasant Ridge Development LLC, John Neace ...

Sad Tweedledee: "Pleasant Ridge residents win injunction against city in fight to save their homes."

At the beginning of September, we surveyed the bizarre scene.

Charlestown's Bob Hall channels his inner Gahan. Are the cattle cars on their way?

We can't demand politicians be honest and transparent without congratulating Bob Hall for his candor.

If we're all being honest (paging Mr. Dickey), there can be little doubt that the conceptual basis of ersatz Democrat Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch in New Albany is perfectly synchronized with the undoubtedly genuine Republican Hall's crusade to erase Pleasant Ridge from the map of Charlestown.

Both seek to make the right kind of space for the better sort of citizen. Think of it as a neatly refashioned "Lebensraum" for River Ridge -- after all, it isn't like those low-rent, anti-social elements work, or anything as useful.

As of this afternoon, there's a fresh twist for the consideration of Tweedledee. No word from Tweedledum, though if he shows up at tonight's council meeting, I'll ask him.

HA HA HA

Pleasant Ridge residents win injunction against city in fight to save their homes, by Justin Sayers (Louisville Courier Journal)

A judge ruled in favor of Pleasant Ridge residents on Monday, granting a temporary injunction that ensures Charlestown, Indiana, officials treat property owners there the same as they do a company seeking to redevelop the low-income neighborhood.

In his ruling, Scott County Judge Jason Mount says that if the city waives fines for properties owned by Pleasant Ridge Redevelopment LLC, "then it must waive fines imposed on other property owners" in the neighborhood, according to court records.

Mount's ruling comes roughly 10 months after the Pleasant Ridge Neighborhood Association asked for the injunction. It also came three months after a contentious court hearing, during which Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall testified that he did nothing wrong in trying to help remove a "low-rent" neighborhood that can attract people "who are not contributing to society."

Pleasant Ridge, meet Louisville City FC: "These people having their homes is more important than a soccer stadium."

First a protest by New Albany Housing Authority residents at last Saturday's Harvest Homecoming parade; now the targeted at Pleasant Ridge taking the consciousness-raising across the bridge.

These are interesting times, eh?

Last year John Neace donated to Trey Hollingsworth, a Republican, but the Louisville City FC stadium drive is Greg Fischer's gig, and he is a Democrat (?), as is Jeff Gahan, who idolizes Fischer, and who recently waged a hostile takeover of public housing in New Albany; now the Democrats opposed to Hollingsworth decry the mayor of Charlestown (a Republican) for hopping into bed with Neace, but Gahan gets a free pass for doing the same thing as Bob Hall, because ...

Because why, exactly?

Apart from unalloyed hypocrisy, that is? 

'Better ways to do business': Pleasant Ridge residents protest LouCity FC chairman at game, by Grace Schneider (Courier-Journal)

Nearly two dozen residents of Pleasant Ridge, a neighborhood in Charlestown, Indiana, picketed outside Louisville City FC's Saturday night game to highlight their opposition to the city of Louisville's involvement with team chairman John Neace.

Carrying signs and a banner, residents handed out pamphlets that said Neace "is trying to bulldoze our homes."

They shouted "Go FC" to fans headed into Slugger Field and told them they were there only to protest Neace, the team's biggest investor.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer has proposed using a $30-million bond issue to buy property and improve infrastructure in the Butchertown neighborhood east of downtown to assist the stadium project. Metro Council members are scheduled to vote on a bond ordinance Oct. 26.

NAHA and Pleasant Ridge? They're lookalikes, and it's only a matter of time until Jeff Gahan is exposed to the same scrutiny as Bob Hall.

So far, it seems that Adam Dickey is protecting his municipal meal ticket, but the party chairman's only hope for Democratic "progress" in the 9th district as a whole is Dan Canon. But our fair Boy Wonder can't defy gravity forever.

At some point soon, the damning case being wielded against Bob Hall, courtesy of Canon in this video, will be understood as applicable to Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch.

And then, finally, this thing gets interesting, because the seemingly invincible Gahan has a significant Achilles heel.

It's called David Duggins.

Craig Ladwig ravages Bob Hall over Pleasant Ridge as Jeff "Me Too" Gahan pouts.

Don't worry, because Shane is here to help.

pluterperfect

Adjective
(comparative more pluterperfect, superlative most pluterperfect)

More than perfect

Usage notes: Seems to appear only in James Joyce's "Ulysses"

And now, also in Ladwig's column, although if Bob Hall is more than perfect, where does that leave Jeff Gahan?

Ladwig's going to need an excellent new word when he gets around to analyzing NA.

LADWIG: About Pleasant Ridge, by Craig Ladwig (N & T)

 ... We used to joke here about the occasional politician who seemed to wish that he commanded a better class of citizenry, that he could replace them with a more sophisticated bunch. Today, too many Indiana mayors and councils adopt that very attitude. In doing so, they thumb their noses at the true driver of community development — respect for individuals and property.

The pluterperfect bad example is Bob Hall, mayor of Charlestown. Mayor Hall told a judge the other day, “I know it’s not politically correct to say this, but when you have a low-rent district, it invites people who are not contributing to society.”

The mayor was referring to Pleasant Ridge, an older section of town whose residents say he is conspiring with a private developer to raze their homes. Their attorney has presented evidence that the city is secretly attempting to lower property values there using selective enforcement of city codes to force those “low rent” residents out and make way for the more aesthetically pleasing.

Municipal policy throughout Indiana increasingly is directed toward punitive zoning, tax breaks for politically favored developers and subsidies for “quality of place” projects such as upscale subdivisions, classy downtown apartments, sports facilities, jogging trails and other recreational and entertainment amenities.

These supposedly will attract that better class of citizen through national corporations and the young professionals they bring with them. Does it work? More specifically, does it work for the people who actually call your town home?

Not unless you are in a small circle of insiders and political operatives — and then only for a limited time until bonding and tax revenue is exhausted. The strategy ignores how wealth is created or how Indiana towns have historically prospered.

Dr. Berry Keating and Dr. Maryann O. Keating want you to consider another approach. They will present a white paper at the Dec. 2 meeting of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation comparing the sense of well-being of various Indiana cities.

It suggests that the cities that do best are those whose governments addresses the basic needs of actual residents rather than the aspirations of prospective ones.

Charlestown's Bob Hall channels his inner Gahan. Are the cattle cars on their way?

We can't demand politicians be honest and transparent without congratulating Bob Hall for his candor.

If we're all being honest (paging Mr. Dickey), there can be little doubt that the conceptual basis of ersatz Democrat Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch in New Albany is perfectly synchronized with the undoubtedly genuine Republican Hall's crusade to erase Pleasant Ridge from the map of Charlestown.

Both seek to make the right kind of space for the better sort of citizen. Think of it as a neatly refashioned "Lebensraum" for River Ridge -- after all, it isn't like those low-rent, anti-social elements work, or anything as useful.

To paraphrase Pete Townshend, "Go to the mirror boys."

Mayor denies Pleasant Ridge accusations, says 'low-rent' neighborhood needs to be removed, by Kirsten Clark (Courier-Journal)

SCOTTSBURG, Indiana — Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall — who is accused of improperly colluding with private developers to wipe out the low-income Pleasant Ridge neighborhood — testified Friday he did nothing wrong in trying to help remove a "low-rent" neighborhood that can attract people "who are not contributing to society."

During a hearing before a judge, Hall maintained that enforcement of the city’s property maintenance code through inspections and fines — which Pleasant Ridge residents allege is part of an “illegal scheme” to force them out — was carried out lawfully and has been effective in addressing issues of crime, garbage and substandard housing in the neighborhood.

“I know it’s not politically correct to say this, but when you have a low-rent district, it invites people who are not contributing to society,” Hall said.

As a closing thought, I fixed Hall's statement:

"I know it’s not politically correct to say this, but when you have One Southern Indiana, it invites people who are not contributing to society."

With potentially valuable redevelopment property at stake, Bob Hall and Jeff Gahan plot different paths to the same "go the hell away" outcome.

Remember the reader comment from a few weeks back, outlining Deaf Gahan's instructions for bag man David Duggins v.v. the latter's probable "stewardship" of the New Albany Housing Authority?

Duggins is getting a nearly 40% raise, not 30% which means that he is basically doubling his salary.

Oops. I meant this part:

Next thing to look for: Duggins will let maintenance slide and push the units into a state of total disrepair by neglect. Then they will have to be torn down. Some residents also expect that their now quiet and safe environment will suddenly be filled with problem tenants so that crime will increase, making the housing developments a broader negative public concern.

Different tactics in Charlestown, same overall aim. At least in Bob Hall's case, he's a Republican and doesn't pretend otherwise. Let's look first at the conclusion of Elizabeth's Beilman's report.

(Charlestown) officials have claimed the ordinance was designed to eliminate unsafe housing. Neace Ventures' redevelopment plan entails demolishing all homes in the neighborhood and building homes similar to those in Louisville's wealthy Norton Commons.

Whether it's New Albany or Charlestown -- Gahan or Hall -- there's potentially valuable property at stake, and absolutely zero ethical sensibility. Humans? Just do what you have to do to move them out, because luxury's on the way.

UPDATED: Charlestown officials, developers privately met on Pleasant Ridge redevelopment, documents show, by Elizabeth Beilman (Hanson's Cornucopia of Christianity)

Documents to be used as evidence in suit

CHARLESTOWN — Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall met in private and communicated via text message and email with developers to discuss redevelopment of Pleasant Ridge, documents supplied to media show.

An email between Neace Ventures developers as well as papers that appear to be notes taken from a meeting last summer suggest part of the plan entailed driving down property values in order to set lower prices for acquiring homes through eminent domain.

These notes, which are being attributed to Hampton taken during a meeting with Hall, state under a section labeled "plans" that "[boarded] up homes will lower values."

"If they talked to the mayor and got an impression that something might or might not happen, they're entitled to their impressions, their beliefs," city attorney Mike Gillenwater told the News and Tribune in a phone interview Wednesday. "You're talking about the note that [Neace Ventures agent] John Hampton took. Those are his impressions."

These documents — which include emails, text messages and meeting notes — were released by the Institute for Justice, which is party in a lawsuit against the city by residents of the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood. The documents were obtained during discovery portion of the lawsuit.

Pleasant Ridge in the NYT: All that nice outside money waiting to be invested, and all those low-income people refusing to get out of the way.

If you live in New Albany, you're advised to pay close attention to the ongoing saga of Pleasant Ridge, a neighborhood in Charlestown, which has been covered in some depth by both the News and Tribune (links below) and the Courier-Journal. On February 11, the story reached the New York Times.

Many of these same themes are playing out right here as Jeff Gahan seeks to remove affordable public housing -- and many of you are looking the other way, quietly pleased that someone finally is "cleaning up The Project" without stopping to consider the nature of the tactics, and without realizing that these tactics, once deemed acceptable, needn't stop with public housing residents who are in the way of big money.

Gahan considers himself a model Democrat (Clintonian sub-species), while Charlestown's mayor Bob Hall at least dispenses with Gahan's hypocrisy by embracing his inner Republican. Apart for disdain for the poor, apparently they have one other signal trait in common.

"Mr. Hall did not respond to requests for an interview."

Familiar, isn't it?

The NYT article is broken into three "teaser" sections.

Where a City Sees Decay, Neighbors Fight to Save a Community, by Monica Davey (New York Times)

 On Friday, residents who hope to save Pleasant Ridge filed a request for a preliminary injunction in state court, aided by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that sees what is happening here as a troubling new way for a city, in essence, to clear land.

“What’s very unusual about this is using code enforcement to circumvent eminent domain law,” said Jeff Rowes, a lawyer in the case, which asks a judge to stop the city. “And we’re worried about this becoming a model — the model for how to replace housing for people of modest means in states everywhere that have passed limits on the powers of eminent domain.”

SNIP

Michael Gillenwater, the city attorney, says what is happening in Pleasant Ridge, where a private developer has begun accumulating lots, is all about safety, not wealth ... “We’re not going to ever make a dime on this,” Mr. Gillenwater said. “It’s a matter of helping out the city and the people in the long run. All we’re doing is trying to have safe housing.”

“This is not about rich and poor,” Mr. Gillenwater continued. “When you’ve got the crime, the drugs, animals running about, this is about life and death.”

SNIP

“There’s no question that there are problems,” said Josh Craven, who lives here and is president of a homeowners association that has grown out of this fight. “But the city let this happen over all these years. They allowed the slumlords to come in, to not live up to the property maintenance code. They’ve let this go on so long that you can’t come in now and say, ‘Oh, you have to repair everything now or we’re going to fine you thousands of dollars every day so that you just have to sell to get out from under the debt.’”

February 9
Pleasant Ridge residents pursue court action to stop building code fines from the city of Charlestown, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)
Neighborhood Association filed lawsuit in January

January 11
Pleasant Ridge Neighborhood Association sues city of Charlestown over building fines, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)
Lawsuit claims several Constitutional rights violated