Our SoIn RDA wants YOUR input on what it already has decided, but only if you happen to be in Salem this Friday at noon.

Oh, dear. I'm going to be lubricating my pitchfork, right?

Regional RDA Seeks Public Opinion to Reimagine Community Development Plan on April 5.

NEW ALBANY, IND (March 28, 2019) The Our Southern Indiana Regional Development Authority (RDA) is seeking advice from the public on the revision of a 2015 regional development plan on Friday, April 5th, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Washington County Courthouse, 99 Public Square, in Salem, Indiana. Anyone living or working in Clark, Floyd, Jefferson, Scott or Washington counties is welcome to attend.

Scroll down for the complete press release. Apparently this invitation was disseminated on March 28. A reader at Fb nails it.

"Nice. Everyone can run out to Salem on their lunch hour to put stickers on posters."

Wait ...

"I've had lunch on the fifth full for weeks. So has anyone with a 9-5 or otherwise super busy. Assholes."

Why, yes.

It seems that all Their Our Southern Indiana's 2019 meetings take place at 10:30 a.m. on Friday mornings. That's a wonderful time for working taxpayers to observe backroom politics in action.

What is this new OSI acronym all about, anyway? It's a place for oligarchs to ...

IMAGINE EMPOWER ILLUMINATE ... Welcome to the Our Southern Indiana Regional Development Authority

Ministered, administered. Input, shinput. As another reader pointed out, the public "input" meeting on Friday is intended for the public to indicate a preference as to which pre-determined idea is least offensive.

The Our SoIN RDA is administered by One Southern Indiana, the chamber of commerce and state recognized local development organization for Clark and Floyd counties in Indiana.

That's how 1Si rolls, so why exactly do we tolerate them, anyway? Of course, what do I know? I'm just a humanities major.

---

Regional RDA Seeks Public Opinion to Reimagine Community Development Plan on April 5.

NEW ALBANY, IND (March 28, 2019) The Our Southern Indiana Regional Development Authority (RDA) is seeking advice from the public on the revision of a 2015 regional development plan on Friday, April 5th, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Washington County Courthouse, 99 Public Square, in Salem, Indiana. Anyone living or working in Clark, Floyd, Jefferson, Scott or Washington counties is welcome to attend.

After fifteen months, the RDA Board of Directors has completed the ground work and is ready to look at adapting the plan to the changed circumstances. For example, the original plan, which was completed in 2016 in response to the State of Indiana’s Regional Cities Initiative, included Harrison County. However, the Harrison County Council voted not to participate and has since been replaced by Jefferson County in the five-county Southern Indiana RDA. In addition, many location and regional municipalities within the RDA footprint have adopted community development plans which will need to be considered when updating the proposal.

The input session will be an open house featuring several stations where members of the public may learn more about the planning process, share ideas and discuss interests. Members of the planning team and the RDA board of directors will also be available to answer any questions.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation granted the Our Southern Indiana RDA $150,000 in October of 2018 for this express purpose of updating the former plan. The goal of the Our Southern Indiana Regional Economic Development Plan is to chart a course, which if followed, will draw public and private investment and quality-of-life improvements to the Southern Indiana region.

In addition to setting goals for future projects, the plan will assess the regional assets and challenges and identify funding opportunities for the region and each county, as well as outline each county’s role in achieving regional goals. The end product will provide the RDA with a work plan that will become a sustainable guiding for the region for the next 15 years.

For more information 

Open house details are as follows:

Our Southern Indiana Regional Economic Development Plan Open House
• Friday, April 5, 2019
• Noon to 1:30 p.m.
• Washington County Courthouse, 99 Public Square
Salem, Indiana 47167

ON THE AVENUES: Our mayor hates non-elected boards -- except when they're his own, which is why "hypocrisy" is spelled G-A-H-A-N.

ON THE AVENUES: Our mayor hates non-elected boards -- except when they're his own, which is why "hypocrisy" is spelled G-A-H-A-N.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I was shocked -- SHOCKED -- when Wendy Dant Chesser's appearance at the city council meeting last evening on behalf of One Southern Indiana proved not to be for the purpose of celebrating her organization's unparalleled excellence, which has been the norm during past self-aggrandizing appearances.

Rather, it was to celebrate the endearingly cute and bouncy love child 1Si created with the help of five regional county governments: OUR Southern Indiana Regional Development Authority. First OSA, now OSARDA. Later comes OSARDAOMG.

It's a good thing I opted for mezcal before entering the council chambers.

Therein lies a tale so convoluted that a brief retelling probably is impossible, but I'll have a go at it. Here's the spoiler: any which way you slice this charred hunk of stuffed camel spleen, the Hypocrisy Tilt-O-Meter comes up screaming "GAHAN." Let's begin with the local chain newspaper's latest in a series of unquestioning boilerplate.

New Albany City Council hears RDA update, by Steno #2534 (Tom May Does It All Gazette)

NEW ALBANY — In 2015 the state of Indiana handed out $126 million to three of the seven Regional Development Authorities in the state, but Floyd and Clark counties were not on the receiving end.

If more state funds become available again, both counties will be in a better position to qualify, according to One Southern Indiana Executive Director Wendy Dant Chesser.

In 2017, Clark, Floyd, Jefferson, Scott and Washington counties formed Our Southern Indiana Regional Development Authority and formed a board made up of five directors — one from each county. That board recently received a $125,000 planning grant and members are looking for input from governing county and municipalities for projects they would like to see funded. Ideas that could attract both public and private funds and one that would benefit the region.

For me, this recurring nausea goes all the way back to December of 2014, as recounted here.

The most recent downtown merchant "mixer" meeting was held on December 16 at Strandz & Threadz, and weirdly enough for a group that seldom attracts more than a dozen attendees, and is routinely ignored by the city's ostensible "economic development" officials, the chat was attended by both State Representative Ed Clere and Mayor Jeff Gahan.

They were there to inform struggling downtown merchants about the potential sheen of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, which at first glance appears to be one of those world-classic, chamber-endorsed, bait 'n' switch ideas designed to divert attention from the mundane daily grind of the here and now (which abjectly terrifies City Hall) and instead, to fix all our gazes toward a bountiful harvest ... a coin flip to be determined some day, down the road.

I was fascinated by the spectacle. In November, David "Industrial Park First" Duggins had dominated the merchant meeting as visiting enforcer, there to silence me and gloweringly assure shop owners that they didn't want to hear about the potential for two-way streets to improve their businesses quite soon, in the short term.

Then a month later, here was the mayor himself, spending half an hour describing the Regional Cities Initiative, a strictly "might be" iffy proposition, tantamount to time spent allocating future lottery winnings to the background noise of a Disney soundtrack instead of counting the change actually occupying the jar. If only someone other than a dissident like me would have said:

"But if it would help business downtown, couldn't we change the streets next week?"

The fact is, the missed opportunity cost of Jeff Gahan’s present-day neglect of small business is irrefutable, and the evidence to support my position is overwhelming, but I've already made these points.

Then as now, I was suspicious.

Regional Cities Initiative 1: Cooperation inducement, or bait 'n' switch?

With New Albany having so many "micro" issues going chronically unaddressed, the randomly "macro" aspect of Indiana's Regional Cities Initiative has struck me as a red flag (or more aptly, red herring) from the very start. More succinctly, when One Southern Indiana starts getting giggly and giddy over the Regional Cities Initiative, it meant we should be getting very cautious.

By the summer of 2015, the various competing acronyms were building up speed toward a showdown, with county councils set to vote prior to a state-imposed deadline.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

To me, the Regional Cities Initiative is just another big-ticket bauble to distract the attention of folks who should be concerned about why we can't fill potholes, reconvert streets to two-way traffic, or recognize the threat posed to us all by income inequality of the sort that RCI's backers accept as the default rules of the game. But I don't, and had the best of intentions to write about my experience before today.

Sorry about that. It didn't happen. RCI is a multi-faceted boondoggle, the usual suspects are swarming, and I've been busy with other things. In the absence of coherence, I'll go scattershot and try to provide a broad outline peppered with venom.

As stapled together and presented as a "no-brainer" in 2015, the RDA still did not pass muster with regional governing bodies at the county level, including Floyd County's council Republicans despite St. Rep. Ed Clere's support.

The two most commonly cited reasons for their opposition were eminent domain considerations (later buffed and polished so as to procure the desired outcome in 2017) and the potential loss of local autonomy. The latter was, and remains, a valid concern, so in mid-2015 as Gahan began slithering away from his previous puppy dog excitement over the RDA, perhaps his evolution was commendable.

Or, maybe it's just that if Clere stated the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, Gahan would assure us the opposite is true. After all, the mayor handed a cool two grand to Clere's most recent election opponent in 2018.

Chump change, big guy. I've tipped better than this at Waffle House. Back to 2015:

Way back in December at the otherwise poorly attended merchant mixer meeting, both Jeff Gahan and Ed Clere were there to let these small business owners know about the approaching boon in state project funding.

I'm told by insiders that Gahan subsequently pulled away from active RCI support for fear that Floyd County's dominant GOP would be in the driver's seat. 

Consequently, given the fact of 2019 being a municipal election year, and with no amount of yoga capable of explaining the frantic posturing on the part of certain of our more desperate time servers in defiance of gravity and logic, it's actually no great surprise Gahan would choose Monday afternoon this week to remind citizens that a Regional Development Authority notion he once claimed as his very own in 2014 now had become almost as repugnant as Baylor's blog.

But Gahan's stated reason WHY it bothers him is precisely what should be bothering YOU.

We return to the newspaper's steno-in attendance.

Prior to the meeting, New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan voiced concerns regarding the RDA initiative.

"The current RDA legislation undermines voters in Indiana,” Gahan said in a news release. “As written, it transfers oversight of public funds and projects away from city and county councils to persons who have not been elected by voters to hold public office. It grants vast autonomy and protections to those who have not taken the oath of office and who have not sworn to act in the best interest of the people of Indiana."

Breathe. Keep breathing.

Entering his eighth year as mayor and sitting atop $130,000 in re-election funds (with perhaps 50k or more coming in 2019), Gahan no longer can abide non-elected boards.

This is hypocrisy on a looming, mountainous and nearly Himalayan scale.

Consider that the bulk of Gahan's campaign finance proceeds over the past eight years -- somewhere around $300,000 total -- are the direct result of pay-to-play patronage deals cut with various lawyers, contractors, engineers, consultants and other vested interests.

These self-interested parties participate in the greasing of wheels to obtain numerous contracts and sinecures falling outside what normal folks assume is a fair bidding process, when in fact there is an entire range of largess not bound by such bidding.

How are these nuggets awarded?

By boards and commissions, prime among them the Redevelopment Commission, Board of Public Works & Safety, New Albany Housing Authority Board and Sewer Board.

Who sits on these boards and distributes the bounty?

Men and women (but mostly old white men) appointed by ... you guessed it ... Mayor Jeffrey M. Gahan.

That's right.

The same grubby Democratic politician who has spent the past seven years cramming these non-elected local boards with pliant sycophants, groveling lickspittles and brain-dead functionaries precisely to avoid oversight from elected officials, seeing as even the minimum of ethics-bound monitoring might threaten the sanctity of patronage deals handed to free-spending donors, now comes out of the bunker like a Godzilla-sized Popeye, swinging his fearsome anchor against the horrors of non-elected boards.

Well, hmm, actually just one non-elected board, this being the only one Gahan didn't appoint and consequently can't control -- and the mayor feels so very strongly about opposing this horrendous precedent, the daily exploitation of which already marks him as a veritable Babe Ruth of the Fix-Is-In League, that he didn't even bother to attend the council meeting and relay his objections in person to Dant Chesser.

Not only is Gahan a hypocrite. He's also a coward, but then again, we already knew that.

I can't disagree with anyone who publicly calls out the potential corruption of hermetic appointed boards. It's a delightful idea to render these non-elected boards and commissions genuinely accountable to the citizenry. But when it's Gahan doing the talking, we know the rationale is political, to be contextualized within the 2019 municipal election cycle.

Because: If Gahan detested non-elected boards so much, he wouldn't be resorting to his own to evade transparency.

"Do as I say, not as I do." That's our mayor. There's only one conclusion, voters: #FireGahan2019

---

Recent columns:

January 29: ON THE AVENUES: How has the 3rd district councilman fared since this question from 2015: "Et tu, Greg Phipps?"

January 22: ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

January 15: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

January 8: ON THE AVENUES: In the 3rd district, that "stepping aside" time finally has arrived.

Dant Chesser hits the Gahan ATM and solves the oligarchs' RDA funding puzzle.

Cue the testimonial ...

The friendly people at Bank of Gahan are happy to help you with financial planning. 

Of course, if you have to ask about interest payments, you probably can't afford them, but Bank of Gahan specializes in easy payment plans with maximum liquidity of campaign finance collateral. 

Bank of Gahan has funded projects large and small, from aquatic centers without a paper trail to the serial harassment of street department employees. 

Bank of Gahan's motto is a promise to you: "It's why we're here."

Enjoy tonight's special feature, presented by Mayor Jeff Gahan and the Bank of Gahan: "Wendy, Make Up Your Mind" (and do your RDA banking with us).



The story begins in a back room ...

Regional Development Authority needs funding before it can plan projects, by Danielle Grady (Omnibus Tom May)

JEFFERSONVILLE — Project ideas at the fifth meeting for Southern Indiana’s Regional Development Authority ranged from region-wide rural internet access to a $40 million road from the Clark Regional Airport to River Ridge Commerce Center.

But the Our Southern Indiana RDA, which was formed at the beginning of the year to facilitate economic development projects in Clark, Floyd, Scott, Washington and Jefferson counties, isn’t in a position to start adopting any of those suggestions. Yet.

Before any formal project ideas are sent to the state for its consideration, funding is needed to create a plan.

Seems the pillars are skint, so they're spending their time brainstorming.

Southern Indiana’s RDA has made positive progress in its first four months, said Dana Huber, the vice president of marketing and public relations at Huber’s Orchard and Winery and Clark County’s representative on the development authority’s board of directors. (Each participating county has its own advocate on the board).

Due to a lack of funding, however, the board has been limited to enacting processes and procedures and — as its members did on Monday in the Clark County Courthouse’s council chambers — discussing ideas that they might want to focus on when planning time finally comes around. That’s been a little challenging at times for the board, which is comprised of business leaders who are used to attaching to ideas and running with them immediately, said Huber. But it hasn’t been overwhelmingly difficult.

“I think the progress has been good,” Huber said. “I think we will feel better, the RDA team will feel better, once we’ve attached our brand to a timeline and some potential projects that will [make an] impact.”

The RDA does know that it wants its projects to impact the region — not just one city or county.

So, naturally, the first round of ideas are restricted (yet again) to Clark County, and reference no clue whatever that truly "regional" needs might just involve things like getting workers to jobs without always having to drive.

The RDA also invited Clark County Commissioners President Jack Coffman to propose a few projects that would benefit the area at the Monday meeting. His suggestions included the aforementioned internet access and road to the airport, as well as the heavy haul road connecting River Ridge, Interstate 265 and the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville.

The question can't be evaded: If the RDAs are to be useful at all, and if needs truly are regional, is there any chance that the same old suspects might be compelled to think in a future tense, as a part from One Southern Indiana's Econ Dev 101 template?

RDA in our time, or an early Christmas for One Southern Indiana and Rep. Ed Clere.

Thanks Martina.

Approval of Son of RDA probably was a foregone conclusion.

(1 of 2) It's Son of Regional Development Authority, coming from your Floyd County Council at Tuesday's meeting.

(2 of 2) Floyd County Council set to approve Son of Regional Development Authority after rejecting it two years ago.

Almost no one knew the RDA had returned to Floyd County Council for down and dirty adoption, but one thing is clear. Now that Floyd County's governmental tier has hospital sale money to spend, we're compelled to start paying close attention to them, too.

In 2015, council Republicans led the way in voting against RDA, but there has been turnover since then, and anyway, when all the DemoDixieDisneycrats in the room are falling over themselves to agree with Rep. Ed Clere, Wendy Dant Chesser and the regional oligarchs she represents ... hey, wait.

It's National Bourbon Day, isn't it?

Now there's an idea for coping skills.

But seriously ... had I known sooner, much more hell would have been raised, though to be truthful, it's on me. I missed the approaching RDA boomerang, and as we've gleaned from so many years observing Deaf Gahan's bunker charades, politicians are secretive just like fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly.

I hope not to be fooled twice. Here's a thought from regular reader Kelley Curran:

The only purpose of an RDA is to "get things done" that supposedly can't be done now because of "politics." Translated, because elected officials are charged with representing their constituents, it makes it difficult to do things not in those constituents' best interests, and that frustrates the (big) business community.

Here's a graphic from CounterPunch. The next time you see this graffiti, it'll have been made One Southern Indiana's homepage banner, because irony is something they're not calculated to grasp.

The newspaper covered last evening's meeting here. Lots of hard, cutting edge questions, and ... say, what about that bourbon?

(2 of 2) Floyd County Council set to approve Son of Regional Development Authority after rejecting it two years ago.

For further background on the 2015 origins of this story, go here.

It was August, 2015, and we were living through an era of alphabet soup. That was then ...

For the sparse straight dope, read Chris Morris's description of yesterday's meeting, in which the Floyd County Council voted 5 - 2 to reject One Southern Indiana's entreaties and remain outside the Regional Development Authority (RDA) required to participate in the Regional Cities Initiative lottery. The voting breakdown reflects this issue's strange non-partisan orientation. Four Republicans and a Democrat (Striegel) voted against, with Pickett (D) and Schellenberger (R) voting in favor.

... this is now.

It seems that for quite some time, some local government officials have been conferring with One Southern Indiana, and we're now going to witness a revival of the Regional Cities Initiative, as plotted and stewarded by an appointed Regional Development Authority board, with the ostensible goal being a share of economic development monies disbursed by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (go here for more).

I'm told the votes are there to pass this measure. For proponents of the RCI, the best case scenario would be an RDA accepted by Floyd, Clark, Harrison, Washington and Scott counties.

Here's the ordinance.

Apologies for the quality of reproduction.

I'm only a pro bono blogger with a full plate today, annoyed yet again by non-transparency on the part of local government, but in little position at the moment to elaborate beyond what I've written.

I've heard the arguments in favor, and respect them. I'd respect them even more if they were accompanied by pledges of renewed transparency, and a concurrent goal to involved more citizens in the process. 1Si has a dreadful record in this regard, and it has consistently refused to be accountable for the horrible plan it created in 2015.

Seeing as 1Si is responsive only to its members, my recommendation is simple.

Engage your county council representatives. 

Agree or disagree; say yea or nay. Ask questions. Expect coherent answers. We need to know if this time we'll be allowed to make input to this process. If not, then it's just another one of 1Si's shell games.

Find them here: http://www.floydcounty.in.gov/index.php/floyd-county-government/floyd-county-indiana-county-council

Good luck, and let me know what they tell you.

(1 of 2) It's Son of Regional Development Authority, coming from your Floyd County Council at Tuesday's meeting.

At the Floyd County Council meeting on Tuesday evening, it is expected that the county's fiscal body will reverse course from 2015 and approve participation in a Regional Development Authority (RDA) to be formed for the purpose of devising and implementing a future Regional Cities Initiative.

Read the ordinance here.

I know; acronym sickness is just over the horizon, but bear with me. All of these slick letter combos are a reprise of 2015, when the state minted the notion of staging a quasi-reality show to disburse lottery winnings (actually, the state's share came from a tax amnesty program).

My effort to explain it in 2015 contained the following excerpt from Elizabeth's Beilman's N & T coverage, although interested parties should reread the whole column to benefit from some of my best-ever pitchfork rhetoric.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

August 12, 2015

(Beilman): One Southern Indiana has taken the lead in producing this plan through a new initiative called “Our Southern Indiana.” The plan includes developments across Clark, Floyd, Washington, Scott and Harrison counties as the Southern Indiana region.

Wendy Dant Chesser, 1si president and CEO, presented the five key areas that the projects cover — waterfront development, regional greenway system, workforce development, River Ridge Commerce Center economic engine and regional water resources ...

... In order to be chosen by the IEDC for RCI funds, the five counties’ fiscal bodies that form the region here must approve the formation of a Regional Development Authority, or RDA. Five non-elected or nongovernmental representatives will be chosen and approved by the each county commission.

If chosen, the Southern Indiana RDA would execute the plan that Our Southern Indiana has devised with the input of local officials and residents through various public forums.

Infuriatingly, the state's website doesn't really explain what an RDA is; rather, it rehashes propaganda from those RDAs already in existence. Exceedingly annoying.

At any rate, 1Si's 2015 RDA/RCI effort collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane. Clark County approved, then changed its mind. Floyd County's council voted no.

As preface for tomorrow's new vote, which I'm told will pass easily, reprinted below are two 2015 explanatory pieces.

---

Indiana Regional Cities Initiative: One Southern Indiana's math didn't help its case, did it?

September 6, 2015

Let's reduce this to the most simple component.

One Southern Indiana convenes a meeting of politicians and acolytes, which I attended, and introduces its grand plan (Our Southern Indiana) for how a quasi-lottery windfall of $434-odd million is to be spent within the framework of a "regional" cities initiative.

1Si takes the Goebbelsian gambit a step further by shrouding it with MBA-level, lower-case tagging: "imagine - empower - illuminate," reminding me that buffed and polished PR-speak tends to send me running in search of a bucket.

Forget all the major topics of discussion before and after the triumphal roll-out meeting, including concerns about the powers of the Regional Development Authority, the potential for eminent domain controversies, and whether or not any of this money actually would be real according to commonly accepted definitions of reality -- and whether any of it would benefit ordinary working people.

Just keep your eyes on the dollar-sign propaganda.

1Si's lottery winning disbursement committee produces proposals for regional unity over a projected five county area, because, yet again, the founding shtick of the whole plan is regional cooperation. One would think this might imply a semblance of proportionality, given the goal of universal participation.

Except that it gets predictable, and quickly.

Greenway expansion funding (can't we finish the 1990s model first?) omits Harrison, Scott and Washington Counties entirely from direct investment. Waterfront development excludes the latter two counties, which don't front on the Ohio. Workforce development spreads a few million farthings around, some of which might leach into the outer reaches of the five-county target area. A paltry 200K is proposed to study regional water resources,which arguably is the most important consideration of all in a time of climate change.

This leaves roughly $252 million to  -- that's right, incentivize River Ridge, which already has been enabled by the state as a regional economic development "winner" for two decades, and showered with every imaginable form of abatement, subsidy and happy ending potions known to corporate welfare fetishists hereabouts.

Proportionately dividing Greenway and Waterfront proposals between counties, it leaves us with $300 million out of $434 million earmarked for Clark County alone.

How exactly does one sell this notion to Washington County -- to Floyd County?

To repeat: I understand that the situation is more nuanced than this. What I'm trying to convey to the usual suspects in imaginary One Southern Indiana Land is that given the numbers you provide, there is almost no compelling reason for a politician sitting outside Clark County to vote in favor of ceding authority when so little of the benefit accrues to his or her home turf.

And, again: Had 1Si led with even the slightest recognition that River Ridge's ongoing "empowerment" suggests regional transit options of the sort that big-time state funding could help realize, I might have given the business-as-usual elites the benefit of the doubt.

There are numerous other reasons to be suspicious of the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, and Rep. Clere can paint it any way he likes, but until One Southern Indiana accepts a measure of responsibility for its ongoing institutionalized tone deafness, it's all moot.

New Albany state rep: Southern Indiana's regional funding bid derailed by 'misinformation', by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

When Indiana State Rep. Ed Clere co-authored legislation meant to inject major dollars into various regions of Indiana, he expected the largest hurdle to be getting that bill passed and funded.

What he didn't expect was for local Republican-led political bodies to shoot down a plan that was passed by a Republican-dominated legislature with support from a Republican governor.

But that's what happened ...

 ... And though competition for the funding was sure to be stiff, the Clark-Floyd county region was thought to be a strong contender, based on its size and proximity to the Louisville market.

But that's now moot for Southern Indiana, as the region has declined to submit an application, according to Wendy Dant Chesser, president and CEO of One Southern Indiana, the chamber of commerce for Clark and Floyd counties.

---

Finally, how it ended.

---

Merciful closure for 1Si as three (!) Indiana Regional Cities Initiative lottery winners are announced.

December 19, 2015

File under: "For the record."

The regions identified below have as their hubs the cities of Evansville, South Bend and Ft. Wayne, respectively.

There'll be chickens in every pot, and the wine will flow like water, or at least Bud Light Lime. Fatted calves will be rendered onto veal, etc, and so forth.

Meanwhile, there is the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

We've got that going for us.

Pence, IEDC Put Stamp on Regional Cities Selections, by Andy Ober (Inside Indiana Business)

INDIANAPOLIS - Governor Mike Pence and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Board of Directors have approved the Indiana Regional Cities Strategic Review Committee recommendations. As a result, the southwest, north central and northeast regions will receive funding as part of the statewide Regional Cities Initiative.

Floyd County Council rejects the RDA and RCI. Will the city of New Albany now rush to enlist?

For the sparse straight dope, read Chris Morris's description of yesterday's meeting, in which the Floyd County Council voted 5 - 2 to reject One Southern Indiana's entreaties and remain outside the Regional Development Authority (RDA) required to participate in the Regional Cities Initiative lottery.

The voting breakdown reflects this issue's strange non-partisan orientation. Four Republicans and a Democrat (Striegel) voted against, with Pickett (D) and Schellenberger (R) voting in favor.

Ed Clere is a big proponent of RCI, and this carried no weight yesterday.

If I understand this correctly, there is still a chance that the city of New Albany could take Floyd County's place in constituting the RDA, which must at bare minimum include two contiguous counties (so far, Clark and Scott).

However, these must have a combined population of 200,000 people. They don't. One Southern Indiana has stated that the RDA train leaves the station on August 31, although some dispute this date. It's a treasure hunt, not a Supreme Court ruling.

Meanwhile, Horseshoe-rich Harrison County is out, but Washington County's council has scheduled a reconsideration for August 20, having previously failed to support the measure in resolution.

New Albany's city council has a meeting the same day at 7:00 p.m. As a second-class city, New Albany is eligible to join the RDA on its own if the county does not. Jeffersonville might, too, but it's moot because Clark County is in.

Depending on whose numbers you use, flipping Washington County and adding New Albany would give Wendy Dant Chesser her 200K population numbers, making the RDA more formidable when the state reviews the RCI lottery applications.

Way back in December at the otherwise poorly attended merchant mixer meeting, both Jeff Gahan and Ed Clere were there to let these small business owners know about the approaching boon in state project funding.

I'm told by insiders that Gahan subsequently pulled away from active RCI support for fear that Floyd County's dominant GOP would be in the driver's seat. As of yesterday, this threat is removed, and if the city enlists, it'll be under terms of engagement dictated by the Democrats.

In short, Gahan  and the same usual suspects can be self-exalting heroes, offering a chimera to assuage their bumbling mismanagement of Pillsbury's departure , and achieving what even the powerful Clere could not produce in his own home county.

Surely this is powerful elixir, and irresistible to them -- and how many council members would oppose it?

I'm thinking as few as three. Personally, I  remain opposed.

There are many reasons to be suspicious of the Regional Cities Initiative, from the basis of the tax amnesty funding the state's portion, to eminent domain fears as yet unaddressed, and including reasonable doubts about a new layer of non-accountable governance, the latter something inadvertently emphasized by Jerry Finn yesterday.

Finn spoke of the Ohio River Bridges Project, and the Bridges Authority's work prefacing it, praising the body for its cooperative regional approach, when in reality it helped usher an era of an unnecessary downtown bridge and obligatory tolls to pay for it -- tolls on bridges in an auto-centric region, which hurt the working poor hardest, and which came about absent representative government's involvement, top-down, from the elites.

In fact, there is nothing in any of it -- RDA, RCI or One Southern Indiana's perennial definition of "economic development" -- that addresses matters like concentrated poverty, exclusionary housing or income equality.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the $450 million RCI package conceived by 1Si's committee of so-called experts that covers any ground whatever in New Albany, apart from something like $30 million in proposals to expand a Greenway that isn't finished yet.

There's nothing in it for Floyd County in the larger sense, at least not to represent a risk worth the county council's consideration.

It's all about regionalism, we're told -- and 60% of the money, which probably is fictitious, anyway, lands not  unexpectedly at River Ridge, and if that's the way is has to be, how about express bus service to get people in Georgetown to their jobs in Utica without having to drive each day?

Yesterday a Knobs resident mentioned a preference for organic growth. He's right, and he points to an underlying truth: We must cease accepting 1Si's insistence that the economic development model it touts is the only game in town.

According to whom?

I will continue to argue that 1Si's usual formula of trickle down corporate welfare is the problem, not the solution.

Still, visions of sugar plums dance in Jeff Gahan's and Adam Dickey's eyes this morning. Taking New Albany onto an RDA would be a political coup ... but nothing more. To repeat: For New Albany, nothing in any of this addresses fundamental projects, or recognizes the basic needs of the people who need the help the most.

Just say no.

Will Floyd County ante up for RCI? Find out today at 4:00 p.m.

Don't look on Facebook to see the time for today's Floyd County Council meeting, at which there'll be a vote to enable a Regional Development Authority, as a preparatory step toward the Regional Cities Initiative.

It's at 4:00 p.m., which represents a meeting time change over what was previously announced. The News and Tribune sez:

The Floyd County Council is scheduled to vote on the ordinance Tuesday, Aug. 11, at 4 p.m. Washington County will reconsider the initiative at a special meeting on Aug. 20 at 1 p.m. Washington County previously passed on the resolution.

Scott County has approved an ordinance toward this end, and Harrison has rejected it. If I understand this correctly, an RDA can be formed with as few as two adjoining counties opting in. However, cities of a certain size (in our region, either Jeffersonville or New Albany) might choose to approve the RDA if either of their counties did not.

There's something for David Duggins to salivate over in case the county council strays.

There's an interesting sidebar in the newspaper article.

One Southern Indiana President Wendy Dant Chesser addressed those concerns and others Monday night. Dant Chesser said the members of the RDA would be appointed by county commissioners and that commissioners could remove an RDA member with a three-fourths vote.

There are three Floyd County commissioners. Two of them voting to remove an RDA member would constitute only a two-thirds vote -- insufficient according to Dan Chesser's reckoning.

See also:

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Back on July 20, I attended a pep rally for public officials.

The topic was the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative (RCI), which first came to my attention in 2014 when both Jeff Gahan and Ed Clere attended a sparse merchant mixer meeting to tout the idea.

To me, RCI is just another big-ticket bauble to distract the attention of folks who should be concerned about why we can't fill potholes, reconvert streets to two-way traffic, or recognize the threat posed to us all by income inequality of the sort that RCI's backers accept as the default rules of the game. But I don't, and had the best of intentions to write about my experience before today.

Sorry about that. It didn't happen. RCI is a multi-faceted boondoggle, the usual suspects are swarming, and I've been busy with other things. In the absence of coherence, I'll go scattershot and try to provide a broad outline peppered with venom.

On Monday night, the Clark County Council approved an ordinance authorizing the Regional Development Authority (RDA), this being the necessary first step for participating governmental bodies. Opponents of RCI reckon that the Floyd County Council will follow suit on Tuesday.

Learn about the case against RCI here, and in this video by Martina Webster. There are valid concerns about eminent domain, crony capitalism, corporate welfare and the largely non-existent sources of local matching funds, among others.

Fortunately, none of this means that RCI is a done deal -- at least yet.

The state will choose two winning contestants from those regions submitting proposals, with the losers queuing to try again next time, so it's rather like uncertainty of buying a lottery ticket combined with the Nigerian bank scam e-mail: Even if you win, you have to pay to get the money (20% local match, and 60% from unnamed sources).

Lagos ... meet Galena.

---

Purportedly, RCI is the solution to the answer to a question: What's Indiana's biggest issue pertaining to economic development, at least according to how the state's Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation define economic "development"?

They believe it is Indiana's population stagnation, "largely attributed to its shortfall in retaining and attracting talent." Read about it here ... and here.

This excerpt is from Elizabeth Beilman's coverage.

 ... The Regional Cities Initiative, or RCI, is a state program intended to support “quality of place” projects through regional collaboration.

The state has allocated $84 million to be split among two regions and used for redevelopment projects that would transform those regions into more desirable places to live ...

 ... The General Assembly passed RCI legislation in May, establishing the funds and outlining the criteria for the IEDC to consider when choosing which regions to award funds to.

State Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, who was House co-sponsor of the legislation, said the RCI was a “no brainer.”

“I think what it boils down to is this has the potential to be a transformative opportunity for Southern Indiana ...” Clere said.

Multiple regions across the state are in the process of submitting their comprehensive project plans, due Aug. 31.

One Southern Indiana has taken the lead in producing this plan through a new initiative called “Our Southern Indiana.” The plan includes developments across Clark, Floyd, Washington, Scott and Harrison counties as the Southern Indiana region.

Wendy Dant Chesser, 1si president and CEO, presented the five key areas that the projects cover — waterfront development, regional greenway system, workforce development, River Ridge Commerce Center economic engine and regional water resources ...

 ... In order to be chosen by the IEDC for RCI funds, the five counties’ fiscal bodies that form the region here must approve the formation of a Regional Development Authority, or RDA. Five non-elected or nongovernmental representatives will be chosen and approved by the each county commission.

If chosen, the Southern Indiana RDA would execute the plan that Our Southern Indiana has devised with the input of local officials and residents through various public forums.

A local ordinance and by-laws — which Our Southern Indiana has preliminarily drafted — would outline specific restrictions or obligations tailored to this region’s needs.

The IEDC guidelines suggest the projects are funded through 20 percent RCI funds, 20 percent local public funds and 60 percent private funds.

I'm tired and sober, so let's put it this way.

River Ridge accounts for roughly 60% of the "wish" funding presented as part of the RCI proposal by One Southern Indiana's front committee.

River Ridge was crony capitalism's chosen regional winner decades ago.

The rest of us are intended as ancillary housing habitations for River Ridge.

There's a toll bridge being built straight to River Ridge.

Soon the city of Jeffersonville will be renamed Amazonapolis, and yet, with $434 million being sought, $252 million is slated to go to River Ridge ... and a paltry $200,000 to a study of the state of the region's water resources.

That's an afterthought, a puddle of spittle, and probably less than Dan Coffey has cleared from demolition kickbacks just this year.

And: Not a penny is proposed for public transit, arguably the finest regional use of such funding if one accepts the primacy of River Ridge ... which I don't wish to do at all.

---

On the day of the pep rally, Ron Grooms made a typically leaden speech, which of course was widely praised by the usual economic development sycophants in clucking attendance, even though it sounded entirely like the dubbed English language version of the commissars praising falsified crop yields from atop Lenin's Mausoleum during May Day parades of old Moscow times.

Grooms recited the banal boilerplate, stressing how important it is for us to make Indiana a great place to live, to attract talent, and keep our best and brightest right here in Hoosierland.

I've been livid ever since.

What Ron Grooms was, and remains, is an outspoken, unrepentant and Kool-Aid swilling proponent of Indiana's catastrophic Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), precisely the sort of bigoted fundamentalist gibberish actively assisting in the dispersal of Indiana's population, and the prevention of investment in the state, but recognition of facts like these lie so far beyond Grooms's reach as a partisan political hack that he stood right there in a room filled with regional elected officials and told them, in effect: Only by creating an RDA to sign onto the coin-flip of the RCI would they be able to cancel out the deleterious effects of RFRA, as foisted on them by his own party's hypocritical Torquemada wing, to which he is slavishly devoted.

Grooms sees no contradiction in creating one mandatory piece of bureaucracy to chase people away, and then establishing another to bring them back, and mayor's race or no mayor's race, had I packed a Boston Cream Pie for lunch that day, I'd have sprinted to the front and crammed it in his face.

My question, which unfortunately there was no time to ask, and hence this column's title:

Yo, Ron -- When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

See you at Pine View on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting's been changed to 4:00 p.m., in case you were wondering.

---

Recent columns:

August 6: ON THE AVENUES: Money is the ultimate bully.

July 30: ON THE AVENUES: Homegrown New Albany, but not in a good way.

July 23: ON THE AVENUES: A citizen's eloquent complaint about the parking debacle at River Run reminds us that planners and brooms go hand in hand.

July 16: ON THE AVENUES: Louisville Beer, then and now ... and cheers to Rotary.

July 9: ON THE AVENUES: A mayoral petition as prologue to history.

July 2: ON THE AVENUES: "Water on the brains: Much less for far more will keep us swimming in it."