Local pretend Democrats joyful as Jeff Gahan offers to demolish homeless camps in exchange for more pretty downtown landscaping.

If local Democrats have no intention of protesting their mayor's eight-year record of abuses committed against the community's less fortunate -- has a single ranking Democrat spoken publicly about Team Gahan's breathtaking lies in the lead-up to demolishing the Silver Creek homeless encampment? -- then perhaps the rest of us should protest against the Democrats. One effective way of doing this arrives in November.

The Floyd County Democratic Party has abandoned any semblance of principle save the ironclad imperative of preserving pay-to-play political patronage in New Albany. A friend said it best yesterday at Facebook:

The destruction of this homeless camp was ordered by New Albany mayor Jeff Gahan (D) who is up for re-election this November. I urge my New Albany friends who vote Democrat to make an exception this fall, and vote for his opponent, Republican Mark Seabrook. Jeff Gahan is a thoroughly corrupt politician.

For the record, my friend Roger ("NA Confidential") Baylor is an independent with a strong leaning towards European-style social democracy, but like me, has found common cause with local Republicans on many local issues.

The News and Tribune's Boyle does fine work with this story.

WATCH: New Albany homeless camp demolished, by John Boyle

NEW ALBANY — A homeless camp along Silver Creek in New Albany was demolished by city crews Monday ...

 ... Marcy Garcia, a volunteer with Hip Hop Cares, has been helping those living in the camp since last winter. The reason the site came to the attention of city officials, she believes, was a fire that took place in one of the structures roughly five weeks ago.

"I think the fire brought it to light," Garcia said. "I think that's really what gave attention to this camp. It was a pretty major fire that happened, and it brought attention, not only to them, but it makes people question the city of New Albany about the homeless population" ...

Previous link(s):

Gahan's boom that crashed: "Quite the tab (for taxpayers) for making vulnerable people's lives harder."

Exit 0's Paul Stensrud pulls zero punches v.v. Gahan's violence against the homeless: "In order for things to change there needs to be a change of hands within local government."

Gahan's boom that crashed: "Quite the tab (for taxpayers) for making vulnerable people's lives harder."

Looks flaccid to us. Time for an Rx?

Damn. I missed the self-congratulatory post-homeless camp demolition pep rally. Wish I could have been there for the popping of corks.

NAC reader DS posted the photograph above in response to social media speculation about the street department's casualties in yesterday's assault on the homeless encampment by Silver Creek.

"The boom didn’t malfunction, it crashed. It will need serious repairs. Another financial hit."

Frequent reader KC replied:

"Wow. That's going to be quite the tab for making vulnerable people's lives harder."

UPDATE: It turns out that Wednesday is a national holiday with deep significance as it pertains to the mayor's customary attitude toward the less fortunate. Perhaps this explains yesterday's hurried conclusion.

Previous link(s):

Exit 0's Paul Stensrud pulls zero punches v.v. Gahan's violence against the homeless: "In order for things to change there needs to be a change of hands within local government."

Exit 0's Paul Stensrud pulls zero punches v.v. Gahan's violence against the homeless: "In order for things to change there needs to be a change of hands within local government."

It appears that Jeff Gahan is as adept at co-opting the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana as he has been in snookering Purported Progressives into hand-feeding him grapes. Gahan has picked a side he can control; if Dear Leader could bulldoze Exit Zero as a concept, then he'd do that, too.

Gahan is pathology, not policy.

Watch the video, and ponder the true nature of Gahan's "compassion." Has a single ranking Democrat spoken publicly about the housing camp demolition?

DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party chairman releases stunning statement about Gahan's violent homeless encampment takedown today -- and more on our Dear Leader's drumpf envy.

Industry and compassion? Hardly. Jeff Gahan refers to public housing as a "compound." He has prisons on the brain, not affordable housing.

Does a New Albany homeless encampment by Silver Creek exist if a blind mayor can't see it?

DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party chairman releases stunning statement about Gahan's violent homeless encampment takedown today -- and more on our Dear Leader's drumpf envy.

What, you expected actual words?

For the real poop, read the Courier-Journal: After 3-day delay, New Albany tears down secluded homeless camp.

For the self-serving bullshit, read Jeff Gahan's re-election page: But the beautiful people all love me dearly.

The Aggregate is working on a story. As of mid-afternoon today, the News and Tribune didn't even know there was a story.

And this is my take:

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“What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own.”

I've been trying my best to begin the process of disengagement from local politics. 15 years is enough, and I need a break; besides, it's become very tedious constantly doing the GOP's job of articulating the resistance to idiocy when I'm a damnable socialist, not a Republican.

That said, my conscience precludes silence in the instance of Jeff Gahan's horrid "information" about "industry and compassion" with regard to the community's less fortunate. The statement, albeit composed by a bootlicking minion, was anything but helpful.

Petulant, flatulent and disingenuous comprise the tip of the iceberg; Gahan's reference to the public housing "compound" might be recent history's most revealing Freudian slip. When Donald Trump emits like-minded tweets, our city's Democrats are gravely offended, screaming and howling, but when their (Democratic?) mayor follows suit the only sounds we hear are pins dropping, crickets chirping and the mournful wail of an underfed mutt off in the distance.

As a friend astutely observed, Team Gahan's absence of "protocol" simply means they can do as they please about a homeless encampment, either look the other way or dial up the dozers, all without a trace of a political, philosophical or humanitarian rationale. Just the sheer whimsy of C-minus students on a power trip with plenty of Jorge Lanz's money.

Don't look at me. He's YOUR mayor, not mine, Democrats.

It's far past time for a reality check amongst those of you fancying yourselves progressive or liberal or whatever, because Gahan's stance with respect to your fellow citizens most in need of a boost -- exemplified by but not restricted to his cynical public housing takeover and of course today's demolition fetish -- has been absolutely abysmal, savagely contradicting any semblance of the "social justice" you claim to be pursuing.

Democrats, I suppose it's your business supporting a morally bankrupt fraud, even if it's based on sheer delusion -- but maybe you can be less blatantly hypocritical about it?

Industry and compassion? Hardly. Jeff Gahan refers to public housing as a "compound." He has prisons on the brain, not affordable housing.

The Courier-Journal has provided an object lesson about the utility of journalism.

By covering a story Team Gahan dearly wished to be kept hidden ...

Does a New Albany homeless encampment by Silver Creek exist if a blind mayor can't see it?

 ... Louisville's newspaper (not the N & T, which is predictably MIA) has New Albany city officials scrambling to put lipstick on their "quality of life" pigs by contriving a "policy" on homelessness (and by direct extension, non-affordable housing) that didn't even exist prior to the past weekend apart from frequent denials over Bud Light Mang-O-Rita at the Roadhouse.

If you've followed New Albany for any length of time, you'll find this headline at the city's propaganda organ absolutely hilarious. 

Mayor Gahan Provides Information About Homeless Assistance in New Albany

Really? Irony-free Nawbany.

Dear Leader wrote the article himself after eight years of refusing to comment publicly on the very same topic?

Constipation, indeed.

Is it an election year?

But okay; fine. We'll take them at their dubious word, and as such, here's a Freudian slip of epic dimension.

"The city of New Albany is the host of the largest public housing compound in the state of Indiana, outside of Gary, Indiana."

The Genius of the Flood Plain should know that the noun "compound" in this instance is defined as such:

Compound: a fenced or walled-in area containing a group of buildings and especially residences

• a prison compound
• an embassy compound

As Major Winchester once noted on television's M*A*S*H, "out of the mouths of babes comes drollery."

For Gahan and his generational cohort, surely vivid images of walls have always crowded their minds as it pertains to their absolute certainty that if public housing (read: nasty poor people) could be removed from this fair city, we'd be enriched to the point of Persian Gulf sheikdom.

It then follows that Gahan wouldn't miss another opportunity to repeat his mantra about the city's commitment to its less fortunate citizens.

New Albany is doing more than its share to provide for the homeless.

Wow.

Gahan has sought for eight long years to avoid publicly mentioning those aspects of human society he finds unclean and distasteful, including homelessness, opioid addiction, non-living wages, petty crime and the like.

Now, even in this PR release masterpiece of sidestepping, avoidance and subterfuge, Gahan can't avoid repeating the unexamined bromides of his generation's upbringing, devoid as they are of substantive intellectual content.

Now, called out by the C-J, he becomes a towering figure of "industry and compassion" (a phrase probably cribbed from this hotel awards release). But actions speak more loudly than mere words, and it's simple.

With enthusiastic support from local Democrats riding the political patronage gravy train, and ignoring their own party platform, Gahan has done nothing in eight years to assist those in this community who are in greatest need. 

Period; full stop. 

The Gahan Bait and Switch has been elevated to an art form -- that's why the pig is wearing lipstick and those levers remain unseen. No civic problem is too great to be hidden behind the Wizard of Disney's network of fake computer-generated facades, and when necessary, out-and-out lying.

This fib-fest about "compassion" for the downtrodden is just the latest example, although it's a unique insight into the brain of New Albany's worst ever mayor and the resulting C-minus student's paradise.

Here's the insipid PR release in its entirety.

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Mayor Gahan Provides Information About Homeless Assistance in New Albany

July 28, 2019

New Albany has a long history of being a city of industry and compassion, and we are well positioned to carry these traditions forward. Today’s Courier—Journal brings to light the situation of two people who are in need of support and a safe and secure roof over their heads. As always, the city will work with Homeless Coalition members, the New Albany Housing Authority, and other affiliated organizations to meet their needs.

Link to Courier Journal article: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/indiana/floyd/2019/07/27/homeless-camp-remains-after-new-albany-nearly-clears/1846883001/

We appreciate and hear the concerns of organizations mentioned in the Courier-Journal article, including Exit 0 and Hip Hop Cares. However, building codes, zoning ordinances, and other laws do not permit the construction of unsafe structures to be used for shelter in the woods, in parks, or in the public right-of-way.

The city of New Albany is the host of the largest public housing compound in the state of Indiana, outside of Gary, Indiana. For a city our size, it is one of the largest in the United States. With over 1100 units, the New Albany Housing Authority dwarfs all others in southern Indiana, having more than Jeffersonville, Clarksville, Charlestown, Sellersburg, and Corydon combined. New Albany is doing more than its share to provide for the homeless, even while facing budget cuts from the federal government. Due to those federal cuts, the New Albany Housing Authority has been shorted over $130 million in maintenance costs alone.

If you, or someone you know, lives in New Albany and needs help finding shelter, please contact one of the following partner agencies to receive assistance:

Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana: (812) 913-5179

New Albany Housing Authority: (812) 948-2319

New Albany Township Trustee’s Office: (812) 948-5498

Does a New Albany homeless encampment by Silver Creek exist if a blind mayor can't see it?

The chief of police shoulders the burden of municipal denial ideology in this fascinating Courier-Journal piece by Billy Kolbin.

We're left with the same question: If the mayor continues to deny the existence of homelessness, addiction, poverty and neighborhood crime in the city -- these ugly blots on the idyllic paradise he's brought us -- is it because he's fibbing, or simply isn't bright enough to grasp it?

Stensrud can keep hoping, but my guess is that New Albany officials will keep denying.

The conversations surrounding the New Albany camp come as Louisville has shuttered multiple camps in the past several months.

(Paul) Stensrud said Louisville at least has a low-barrier shelter and storage lockers for those hoping to get off the streets, though the low-barrier shelter at Wayside Christian Mission is not without its own issues.

He's hopeful that people struggling on the Indiana side of the Ohio River will soon have more places to turn besides makeshift camps.

"We're hoping this will lead to a better partnership with New Albany officials," Stensrud said. "... It takes time."

Choices, choices: Will the GOP's new "Opportunity Zones" further incentivize the gentrification Deaf Gahan encourages as a DemoDisneyDixiecrat?

A breathless tout of a press release ran under the radar at the end of last week owing to fireworks mania, and it reads every bit as dismally as if it had been submitted to the understaffed and hapless News & Tribune by One Southern Indiana itself.

Actually, since Wendy Dant Chesser is prominently featured, it probably was, and you can hear the advice from the 1Si break room: heck, just send it to the 'Bune -- they'll print anything.

Note the euphoria over mere nominations to an awards program as yet largely undefined. There may be no winners to date, but the decision is coming soon, and the same old SoIn economic dishevelment grandees want you to know they're on the scent of trickle-down, not to mention tinkle-over.

Five SoIN areas nominated for federal incentives program

SOUTHERN INDIANA — Five areas in Clark and Floyd counties have been nominated as Opportunity Zones, a federal program that provides tax incentives to attract private sector investment to low-income urban and rural communities. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Thursday that he submitted a total of 156 census tracts from 58 counties to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury for the program.

• Clarksville tract 18019050401 - The approximate 1400-acre tract is bordered by Browns Station Way to the north, the Ohio River to the south, Jeffersonville to the east, and New Albany to the west.
• Jeffersonville tract 18019050199 - The heart of downtown Jeffersonville with the Ohio River to its south, across from downtown Louisville.
• Charlestown tract 18019050903 - This tract is located adjacent to River Ridge Commerce Center (RRCC), the premier industrial park with 6,000 prime acres under development in the Midwest’s top-ranked business environment.
• New Albany tracts 18043070400 and 18043070500 – Central to the City of New Albany’s recent reinvention and rise as a destination for traveling foodies, shoppers and residents alike, this census tract is ripe with opportunities for future growth.

A detailed map showing all 156 nominations

Let's try to unearth a semblance of context. Whatever it is, this sorta/kinda/maybe "opportunity zone" covers vast tracts of SoIn near the banks of the Ohio, and it's something to do with the GOP's purported tax cuts and the pressing need for the rich to become even wealthier.

Opportunity Zones In Indiana

Public Law 115-97, also known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, allows the Governor of each state to nominate certain census tracts as "Opportunity Zones".

This seems important: "low-income communities." Is there smoke from third-floor windows yet?

OPPORTUNITY ZONES: A NEW INCENTIVE FOR INVESTING IN LOW-INCOME COMMUNITIES

The Opportunity Zones program is designed to incentivize patient capital investments in low-income communities nationwide. All of the underlying incentives relate to the tax treatment of capital gains, and
all are tied to the longevity of an investor’s stake in a qualified Opportunity Fund, providing the most upside to those who hold their investment for 10 years or more.

Spoiler alert: there also are dissenters, and some of them aren't socialists like me.

Will Opportunity Zones help distressed residents or be a tax cut for gentrification? by Adam Looney (Brookings)

... There is no evidence that the design of Opportunity Zones will be as effective as Empowerment Zones or other redevelopment efforts, particularly when it comes to benefits to local residents. Moreover, the theoretical effect of the Zone tax subsidies on local residents is ambiguous. It’s a subsidy based on capital appreciation, not on employment or local services, and includes no provisions intended to retain local residents or promote inclusive housing.

I'm both repelled and fascinated for reasons of local propaganda and politics.

Imagine you're Deaf Gahan (insert anguished scream here). Deaf's a good DNC center-right Democrat, one presumably opposed to the GOP's tax cuts even if he supports escalating the enrichment of capital accumulators, so long as they donate to Gahan4Life.

Now a Republican governor sitting atop a solidly Republican state apparatus has embraced a Republican-driven tax cut for wealthy investors, and that's all hunky-dory, except by doing so, he has simultaneously declared Gahan's anchor-laden Giddy Giddy City to be a Potemkin pretend-facade.

Actually, says Holcomb, downtown's a low-income wasteland in need of rescue by wealthy, GOP-suckling hoarders -- and of course, Dant Chesser nods vigorously in approval.

But downtown is Gahan's triumph, isn't it?

He says so all the time. From the moment Deaf was sworn into office, he's been taking credit for single-handedly rescuing downtown from all those Democratic predecessors, whose names appear seldom in the victorious and increasingly Orwellian narrative centering on Gahan's personality cult.

From Trump through Holcomb, and including Dant Chesser and other groveling functionaries, Gahan's pride and joy has been pinpointed as an area of economic devastation meriting alms from the rich, effectively yanking a plank of the re-election platform out from under the mayor's bunker-sore feet.

If downtown is so rosy that affordable housing units can be destroyed at will (see "Duggins Does the NAHA," weekly in this space), then how can it be that the GOP is free to declare it a disaster?

It gets even trickier.

If Gahan fights against the GOP's Opportunity Zone program, he'll be depicted as rejecting worthwhile potential cash infusions; at the same time, seeing as one of many progressive cases against the zones involves potential gentrification, well, gentrification is exactly what Team Gahan's been seeking all along.

Is Dear Leader for or against "opportunity zones"?

We may need a theologian to help unravel this pretzel, and fortunately, the nullpaper currently has two of them writing each Sunday. As for me, it's perilously close to beer-thirty ... and our overall problem hasn't changed.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS (special double-down-low edition): Potemkin village.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show that pesky CM Cappuccino that you're brighter than him.

To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us who want nothing more than to be able to comprehend why we pave a street knowing that it will be destroyed by construction a mere two months later ... well, all we have is votive Oz time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

Now for the meat. In historical fact, the phenomenon of the Potemkin village may or may not be true, but it's a great story of fake building fronts erected to deceive a passing absolute monarch. After a few beers in New Albany, the notion of Potemkin village begins to blend with the tale of the emperor's new clothes, and then you remember that scene in Blazing Saddles when the action shifts from fiction to film set.

First, a definition.

Potemkin village

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase "Potemkin village" (also "Potyomkin village", derived from the Russian: Потёмкинские деревни, Potyomkinskiye derevni) was originally used to describe a fake portable village, built only to impress. According to the story, Grigory Potemkin erected the fake portable settlement along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her journey to Crimea in 1787. The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is. Some modern historians claim the original story is exaggerated.

Next, an example:

There are times when New Albany is more Potemkin village than reality, when it seems that everything is done only for show and appearance, and nothing elemental ever really changes even as victory is declared and the next election looms.  

Photo credit.

We wouldn't want visitors to see the problems behind the Potemkin village.

Why this obsession with appearance, as opposed to genuine substance?

I can support beautification -- really, I can -- but can we also get Clean and Green's money, time and input into complete streets, two-way street conversions and traffic calming?

Wouldn't these measures impact the lives of residents in a way far greater than greeting signs? And isn't it supposed to be about the people living here?

New sign for New Albany's Spring Street entrance still in the works; City may request public input, Stumler said it’s time to get it done, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Sprucing up the gateway — at least the public portion of the segment — into New Albany from Clarksville via Spring Street has been on Irv Stumler’s mind for three years.

“It’s an awful way for people to make judgments of New Albany,” said Stumler, who is the president of the nonprofit Keep New Albany Clean and Green.

“We need to put on a better face for people who come into New Albany” ...

... The entrance into New Albany from Clarksville is a concern to the administration, but it’s public property so providing residents the opportunity to suggest ideas on upgrading it would only be fair instead of limiting it to one person or organization, Gahan said.

Group convenes to take credit, and does. A lot.

I can find approximately 108,000 reasons to raise an eyebrow, but what the hey ... let them have their day.

Pillars of the community: Develop New Albany hands out Pillar Awards to local businesses, leaders, by Daniel Suddeath

(photo credit)