Taco Steve among the vendors at Sunday's 50th birthday party at Sam Peden Community Park.

I'm told that Powell's Pigs & Cows, Shawn's Southern BBQ and other vendors will be on hand Sunday for Community Park's 50th birthday party.

What will not be available is NABC's iconic Community Dark, so named as a pun directly referencing the park, which is located just down Grant Line Road from NABC's original Pizzeria & Public House location on Plaza Drive.

That's because there is no provision in current law for exceptions to Community Park's mandated "dry" status. This came up earlier in the year, when briefly it appeared the park might be the ideal venue for IndieFest.

However, Republicans in county government did not possess the will (or interest) in changing the law, and so in spite of the ready availability of  temporary sales permits, and the profits to be accrued by controlled and otherwise perfectly legal consumption of alcoholic beverages, beer cannot be involved in the party.

For those alleging that I've been letting the GOP "off the hook," please reread the preceding, and recall my general attitude toward prohibitionist spasms.

At the newspaper, papa provides the details and praises the old white males.

Community Park at 50: Concert planned to celebrate New Albany park, by Chris Morris (News and Tribune)

... Despite the many changes to the park in the last 50 years, Community Park is still one of New Albany and Floyd County’s most used parks. And on Sunday, Aug. 16, the Floyd County Parks Department will host a free concert at the park to celebrate its 50th birthday ...

... The concert begins at 6 p.m. on Aug. 16 with the Jessie Brown Band from Nashville kicking off the festivities. Midnight Special-The Classic Rock Experience will take the stage at 7 p.m. and the headline act, Shenandoah, the 1991 Academy of Country Music Vocal Group of the Year, will close out the festivities. The concert is being funded by user fees and a grant from the Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County. The concert will conclude at 10 p.m.

Floyd famine fetishists cheer as fiscal starvation advocate presumably appointed to county parks board.

The URL is the same, but the web site's content has changed to match new realities.

Last week, the Green Mouse was told that there'd been an appointment to the new stand-alone Floyd County Park Board: None other than Ted Heavrin, recently ousted county council member.

Hit it, Slash.

If this rumor is true, Heavrin will be the only parks board member with his own island ...

 ... as well as a long-standing, cherished plan to reform Community Park's scandalously wasted space.

Before filing this notice under "Fox, Meet Chicken Coop," enjoy the board's statement on leadership.

PARKS LEADERSHIP

With the recent abolishment of the New Albany Floyd County Department of Parks and Recreation separated into two entities a newly appointed Floyd County Park Board will be appointed in 2013. The appointments will be acquired through the County Commissioners, Council and Circuit Judge. We will inform you of these appointments in 2013.

http://www.nafcparks.org/

Doom and gloom beneath the rotted kitchen formica as city, county agree to demolish the North Annex.

Actually, they didn't agree -- yet, but it's looking like a done deal. I'd much rather save the Annex and demolish Wal-Mart; after all, the 800-zillion pound gorilla's ten years probably is approaching, signalling a move to Edwardsville or Birdseye.

New Albany hopes to develop pool at Community Park; Floyd County to keep sports center in agreement reached Tuesday, by Daniel Suddeath (That 'Bama Show)

New Albany will be responsible for the costs of building, maintaining and operating the aquatic center if it comes to fruition. An important side note to the agreement is that the city and county would jointly split the costs to demolish any structures on the property necessary to construct the aquatic center.

Demolition could include the North Annex building, which has been vacant since the Floyd County Youth Shelter and solid waste office moved to the Pine View Government Center.

A plan and statement released by the city and county Tuesday didn’t include exact details for demolitions or construction of the aquatic center. The plan did specify the division of parks equipment and property.

There's an interesting addendum within Grace Schneider's C-J coverage:

 ... The deal also calls for the city to “provide support of the county’s proposed public plaza concept near the aquatic center on the existing annex property at Sam Peden.

Obviously, we can kiss the Annex goodbye. Too bad that somewhere, tacked on the pool and baseball field bonds, there isn't a spare million or so not otherwise allotted for maintenance of Bob Caesar's driveway up Silver Hills that we might use to complete a few streets.

That's no ordinary piece of abandoned concrete.

The Green Mouse has learned that soon-to-be-former Floyd County Council kingpin Ted Heavrin, who was ousted from office in the 2012 Quasi-Democratic primary, plans to secede from the county and establish a new administrative unit called the Union of Fiscally Responsible Public Officials (UFrpO), to be located on this concrete platform in the middle of Sam Peden Community Park’s fowl lake.

Heavrin’s inspiration is said to be a photo he saw on the Internet.

It’s the Principality of Sealand, located off the coast of the United Kingdom.

Because the new unit has absolutely no revenue, the budget is non-existent, and this is fine with the founder and sole occupant.

“During my entire council career as a pretend Democrat, I never wavered from the belief that revenue is impossible,” Heavrin observed in a freshly mimeographed press release.

“We’re always better off starving than aspiring, I always say.”

But where there is an iron will, there is a way.

“I’m considering entering the UFrpO into next year’s Bicentennial Art contest," writes Heavrin, "because of course I’ll win, and I hear they pay a few bucks to the winners. After all, I need a rowboat to get out there, and a shovel for all that duck shit. Of course, I’ll be buying something third-hand.”

NA Confidential would like to be the first to formally recognize the UFrpO, and we look forward to hearing the national anthem while we're walking on the beltway.

Trust and transparency from the commissars -- I mean, commissioners.

On today's newspaper, Floyd County's secretive board of commissioners emerges from its knobby bunker to reply to a minor sliver of implied criticism in a recent (and exceedingly droll) editorial. To no one's surprise at all, the Bush/Freiberger/Seabrook troika would very much like to throw the city under the bus, thank you -- but it isn't about politics at all, of course

Commissioners respond to newspaper’s editorial

... Among the items in this plan is the future operation of Sam Peden Community Park. The editorial board raised the question of trust with the question: “How much do you trust the county to maintain the city’s most sizable park?” ...

... Regarding this issue of trust which the editorial board raised about the county’s commitment to Sam Peden Community Park, it is interesting to hear that the city administration was already working on the plan dissolving the joint park system while members of the respective elected bodies of the city, county and members of the parks board were working toward finalizing and voting on a new agreement.

Meanwhile, the city council is going to approve a budget, build a new clock tower and grease the wobbly financial wheels of CM CeeSaw's coffee-table, white-bread Bicentennial celebration.

New Albany budget vote tonight: $20M budget up about $1.2M from last year

 ... Caesar said the commission will send out letters to local businesses asking them to purchase the book or carry editions to sell. He expects the business community will respond and there won’t be a problem selling the books.

Can't wait to be asked, Bob.

Just wait and see what we plan to do with Valley View.

County council's Schellenberger finds someone else to blame for his own body's proclivities.

Earth to John Schellenberger: There's no need to blame the newspaper and/or the parks board for "misinformation" in the case of Community Park, not when Ted Heavrin (and Larry McAllister before him -- they were the Martin and Lewis of the County Council, remember?) -- spent the past decade making hints about sell-offs, strip malls and "our way or the highway through it."

John, if you want your furniture shredded, get a cat, and if you want 1940's-era thinking, keeping letting the same two dudes run your council. It's that simple.

Meanwhile, the reporter Morris does his job well and locates the best quote of the night, from council youngster Brad Striegel:

“This is a quality of life issue. Funding will be tough on both sides, but we have an obligation to meet. I’m tired of hearing how the [David] Camm trial is going to hijack quality of life in this area.”

Me, too. Someone buy that man a cigar.

Floyd County OKs parks deal; City Council will take final vote on measure April 19, by Chris Morris (Pop-Up Reproduction Laboratory)

... However, before the final vote, county Councilman John Schellenberger had several questions for NA-FC Parks Board President Scott Klink and Director Roger Jeffers. After those questions were answered, Schellenberger said he didn’t think it was fair to make threats in the newspaper about closing a particular facility or trying to make the county council look like the “bad guy” during the process.

“Why would you say you would close Community Park and not other parks. That misinformation gets people stirred up,” Schellenberger said. “I feel like we are being used as a pawn in all this when it’s a bigger issue. It bothers me that something lands in the Tribune and gets people all stirred up. People read it and think we are going to close Community Park.”

Nash: "Strategic planning has never been a strong point in this community."

Matt Nash's column appears weekly in One Southern Indiana Newspaper (or OSIN, as we've referred to it since the merger), but he also publishes it at his blog site on Friday, and linking to the piece there pleases me. I'm in no mood currently to provide OSIN with traffic via NAC-generated links, at least for so long as pop-up ads continue to plague readers of the newspaper's web site.

As for Matt's column, it's another winner.

When it comes to unchecked development and sprawl's pavement producing proclivities, we as Americans all know how to generate it, but like Matt, we assume that there can be no reversal once the ugliness becomes reality.

Perhaps it's time to ask: Why not?

It reminds me of the debate about Communism back in 1990, in the sense of knowing how it was implemented, but having no blueprint for undoing it. And yet, it was undone. How do we undo past planning disasters, even as we prevent Floyd County government from pursuing more of the very same mistakes?

My Friday Column: Smart Growth Would be Progress, by Matt Nash

After the land is developed and the grass is no longer there, it will never come back again. It will forever be a strip mall or a box store or an empty building that sits and gathers trash. Of course I am sure that drainage will no longer be a problem, since we always trust our developers to manage the extra runoff water so well.

Moss: "Community Park is under attack, by (Scott) Klink’s reckoning."

Earlier this week, Dale Moss picks up where my recent column, ON THE AVENUES: The usual suspects, and a future held hostage, left off.

Scott Klink's defining moment for Floyd County

Does Floyd County have enough park land? Can it have enough? Scott Klink is certain of the answers.

He feels fairly sure of yours, as well.

In any event, Klink wants to believe that people believe a county must be more than its storefronts. Business matters but so does getting away from business. Klink asks that his county believe it is high time — the clock ticks — to stand up for a better quality of life.

“It’s not about taxes and revenue all the time,” Klink said. “At some point, it needs to be about what’s good for people.”

The county is considering the future of land on and around its to-be-shuttered annex — its one-time poor house — on Grant Line Road. Options seem to include selling some, most or perhaps all of what Klink said totals 18 acres.

Klink is involved officially as president of the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Board, which operates Sam Peden Community Park right behind the annex. He is involved unofficially as a citizen who, when traveling, marvels at how well some places make the most of nature. They appreciate that more and more pavement is not the only sign of progress. Anyway, Community Park is under attack, by Klink’s reckoning.

ON THE AVENUES: The usual suspects, and a future held hostage.

ON THE AVENUES: The usual suspects, and a future held hostage.

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist

Community Park Developers LLC’s plans would include the entire 18-acre tract. James L. Shireman, Larry Timperman and John W. Lopp make up Community Park Developers. The three propose that their development would create 520 jobs, provide about $100,000 in tax revenue for the county each year and as much as $1 million or more after all lots are sold.
-- News and Tribune

520 jobs at a strip mall, generating only $100,000?

Am I supposed to laugh, or cry?

Hello?

There are the times when you look at the acreage and occupants comprising the places where you live and work, and you say to yourself (but only after a snort of very strong drink): Seriously, the only thing that can possibly explain this degree of absurdity is an overall genetic deficiency.

Truly, it must be something in the water.

As my blogging colleague Bluegill noted yesterday, it’s the usual suspects, all the way across the board.

It’s the same so-called thinking downtown (River View, anyone?), as the same purported thinking along the Grant Line corridor, to the effect that the same exurban developers, and the same feather-bedded architects, make a proposal to the same tired political functionaries, the latter representing the same two clueless political power-sharers, and we decide, without voting, to chew up and spit out some of the last remaining green space inside the beltway for the same short-term development to benefit the same inveterate, eternal, close-minded small-timers as always.

Yes, there is another proposal on the table, and it would protect a portion of the open character of the land. Label me unimpressed, because two options are two options: Black, or white. This, or that. Democrat, or Republican. Does anyone have a bucket?

Moreover, given the almost laughable non-choice being offered, why am I the one declared “toxic” for asking questions like this one: Why can’t there be a third option that calls for leaving the space clean and green, at a time when we continue to battle the storm-water implications of rampant pavement?

Why must there be another parking lot?

---

I believe that in large measure, the current New Albany-Floyd County Parks Board has the best interest of Floyd County’s park system in mind. I accept that high on its list of priorities is preserving the territorial integrity of the existing parks. When Scott Klink, the board’s president, and other correspondents say they do not favor yielding park lands to variously conjectured proposals for sale and development, I take their protestations at face value, even as I cock an eyebrow and wonder if a future Little League baseball complex is their ultimate goal for Community Park.

I like baseball, but doubt if that’s the answer, either.

But it is a measure of the suspicion and non-transparency enveloping this topic that in defense of its laudable goals, the Parks Board chose its own somewhat less than transparent strategy during the most recent state legislative session, by persuading State Representative Ed Clere to introduce a parks district law behind the backs of the city’s and county’s elected officials.

Such a district would take the county’s parks entirely out of the jurisdiction of elected officials, as well as provide funding from tax revenues outside the reach of their grasping hands.

And yet, the parks district surprise attack may have seemed like the only viable option available to the Parks Board, given persistent insinuations (some would say, “threats”) made by certain elected officials whose names begin with Ted to the effect that lacking the political courage to tax the populace, they’d happily develop parklands to resolve short-term funding problems.

When the county’s planner, Don Lopp, began running interference for his paymasters in recent comments right here at this blog, the course became considerably more obvious. I’d say Lopp’s circuitous logic surely outed the political Philistines in the county, except there was no need for outing; they’d have sold the Community Park frontage already if the recession hadn’t intervened, and have said so often enough.

We’d have another dollar store, another chain restaurant, and another flea market, sans any commensurate uptick in political courage on the part of our masters … except that they’re no masters of mine, and it saying so aloud makes me toxic, then so be it.

---

In the end, amid the lies, threats and unreconstructed, pure dullness of the folks we’ve elected to chart the future, there finally is revealed an instance when Ed Clere might have been of some use to the citizenry.

Rather than same armchairs in the back room, he might have expended mere farthings of his voluminous political capital, gone to the residents of the county with the case for a “pledge” on the part of elected officials in New Albany and Floyd County, and made the case that “green” is a unifying theme.

Something like this:

“We recognize the value of green space, and will eschew short term gains by observing the long term benefits of our parks. The territorial integrity of the NA-FC parks system will be preserved, even as we seek to expand these boundaries.”

Or something like that. Alas, even if Rep. Clere had taken the high road, I can no easier imagine either Doug England or Ted Heavrin saying these words than I can picture me drinking an ice-cold Miller Lite.

The mayor would flip Valley View at the drop of a hat, and Heavrin, the county council president for life, reappointed to office after electoral defeat by a party hierarchy that lives in the 1940’s, would do the same with the Community Park frontage.

I don’t mind pointing it out: Damn, we’re dumbasses here in New Albany and Floyd County. It is really in the water, or is there something we can do about it?

JAY-sus, can we please have leadership for 2011, not 1961?

Here's Floyd County Council retro pasha Ted Heavrin on the best future of the Annex, sidestepping yet again the possibility he most desires, that of chewing up and spitting out 18 acres of Community Park at the behest of the Philistines, because after all, why not let planner Don Lopp speak for the Council instead of the ones who for some unknown reason were elected to office?

"I’ve always talked about (how) that would make a great place for senior housing” or student housing because the site is directly across the street from Walmart and near movie theaters and other commercial development, Heavrin said.

Is it any wonder that local Republicans and Democrats are indistinguishable? Go and get your cleanest dirty barf bags, and read more of Harold Adams's article here.

County planner asks: What are your thoughts on the Annex building's future?

In recent weeks, Don Lopp, the Director of Operations and County Planning in Floyd County, has twice joined the blog discussion about the future of Community Park and the North Annex.

July 31: Community Park, North Annex, development and the fog of political obfuscation.

July 15: "Is Floyd County seeking to develop up to 18 acres of Community Park?"
NAC appreciates his willingness to participate, and so I'm moving his most recent posting to the marquee in hopes of continuing the chat. First, I wrote this:

The Annex occupies a very small part of up to 18 acres. The very best idea for these acres is the only one I'm not hearing: Keep them green ... and that's a direct result of the Philistine proclivities of the dudes who sign Don's check.

Don's response:

I appreciate the forum and the response regarding the alternative of keeping the frontage entirely green. I would like to continue the dialogue if I could by asking your thoughts on the annex building. Thanks for the discussion.

Readers, what are your thoughts on the Annex building, and by extension, the topics considered in the ongoing Community Park thread?

Nash: "A little bit of hodge podge."

From the controversy at 8th and Culbertson, to the future of the North Annex and Community Park's threatened green space, and back to State Street improvements, sans bike lanes ... Matt covers much ground in today's column, and ties it together in the end.

NASH: A little bit of hodge podge

One of the problems I have is that I may have an opinion on any number of topics every week, I just don’t always have enough to say about it that could fill an entire column. This is one of those weeks. Sometimes I hope by the end of the article that I can tie everything together but we’ll just see how it goes.

Community Park, North Annex, development and the fog of political obfuscation.

OSIN's Chris Morris braves the eternal glower of the county council's prez-for-life to report this story:

No decision yet on North Annex future; NA-FC Parks Department wants Community Park to remain intact

... Ted Heavrin, president of the county council, said no decision has been made about the property’s future. He said the layout of the area will limit development.

“You can’t build under power lines ... they should know that,” Heavrin said of the parks board.

Heavrin said before anything is decided, all parties involved will have a meeting.

Sound familiar? That's because we were discussing it on July 15: Is Floyd County seeking to develop up to 18 acres of Community Park? The discussion rather prematurely ended with this comment from Jeff Gillenwater.

I appreciate your time, Don (Lopp), but that really doesn't answer my question. You mentioned that the original thought was to make 4-6 acres available but that preservationists requested an expansion to 18 acres.

Why? What is someone going to do with 18 acres that they couldn't do with 4-6? Is there an entity proposing something specific that requires more land? What thinking led to the expanded offering?

Given their abysmal communication record lately, it would be helpful for the public to know what's happening on the preservation front *before* any governmental commitments are made.

So, what's really happening? Give that wheel a spin, will ya?

Is Floyd County seeking to develop up to 18 acres of Community Park?

The Green Mouse went out to forage last night, and he came back with this interesting tidbit -- today's special at the Floyd Boobocracy Rumor Mill.

Amid talk of Floyd County's perennially unimaginative political leadership cadre replenishing its coffers by selling Community Park's Grant Line Road frontage to property developers, thus making short-term profitable asphalt sausage from the last existing green space inside the beltway, now comes a strong hint that up to 18 acres of parkland is being considered for future development.

I'm told by a reliable source that county planner Don Lopp recently released a Request for Development (to the general development population) for proposals to devour up to 18 acres of Community Park for development, and that the Parks Department had no prior knowledge of this action.

As such, the smelly morass of parks district legislation proposed earlier in 2011 bubbles yet again to the surface, in the sense that seemingly just last week, political seat-holders now expressing keen interest in paving the city's green space were accusing the parks board of precisely the same objective.

Who to believe? And how many showers must one poor blogger take when reporting the news of greed? Okay, readers: Tell us what you know, up front or down low.

Look to the county, not Community Park, for Little League needs.

I'm a fervent baseball fan, as diehard as they come, and I played Little League myself, but notions of draining the lake at Community Park to build ball fields smack of sheer desperation at this point.

Yes, I feel the pain of the Little League proponents, but the economic climate is not favorable, and the money -- if it existed at all -- surely would be better spent on outdoor recreational opportunities suitable for all residents, not just the ones playing and watching baseball. Community Park is a commons, and should remain one.

New Albany Little League eyes new home; Idea has been discussed, but move to Community Park is unlikely, by Chris Morris.

... “We don’t have a master plan yet. We are just trying to see what will work,” (Troy) Striegel said. “Maybe we can come up with a couple of options” ...

... Floyd County Council President Ted Heavrin said he understands the need, but said it would be difficult to build a Little League complex at Community Park.

“It would take a lot of the park to build that kind of complex. And you can’t build under those power lines out there,” he said. Heavrin also said there are better options in the county, “but nobody is going to give it [land] to them.”

I'll hand this one to Heavrin, because he's right. A county solution, while not free, makes the most sense to me. It's where the land is.

At the same time, today's article is another wake up call for the city of New Albany. All of us need to begin the mental re-education process of identifying Community Park as an iconic green asset that stands to grow in value as the years pass, not just as a remaining collection of land suitable for better use as something else when the mood strikes.

One last brief consideration, and I'm off to Indy for my guild meeting.

Seeing as my business lies just around the corner from the current Mt. Tabor Road baseball complex, I've had many years to observe the Little League phenomenon of parking cars on the street to be as near to the field as possible.

Road widening evidently would "squeeze" the diamonds and cost a few parking spaces used by parents and followers, and yet within a few hundred yards, there are parking lots aplenty -- at K-Mart and Kroger, among others.

If I'm reading this correctly, the fields already there are usable, if not state of the art (some of the places I played growing up resembled glacial moraines more than ballfields), and to require folks to walk a hundred yards does not seem out of the question. It's a sport, after all, so walk.

County solutions, anyone?

User fees for foreigners: If incomprehension is the enemy, are we on Candid Camera yet?

(To myself) ... it simply has to be a set-up, like when comedian Don Novello wrote goofy letters to politicians and corporations in the guise of Laszlo Toth ... but I guess I’m falling for it …

Following is the text of a July 9 letter to the Tribune, unarchived as of yet, but worth examining for insight into life within the confines of the Open Air Museum.

He wants out-of-state visitors to pay

I went to Sam Peden Community Park recently to go fishing.

There was a crowd but considering it was July 4, I should not have been surprised. But after checking out the license plates of the cars in the parking lot, I noticed that 90 percent of these people are from Kentucky.

Why in the world would people drive across the bridge to visit our parks when Louisville has at least five or six parks of their own?

Back in the day, when Community Park was new, there was a fee to get in there. Yes, there was a swimming pool at the time.

But since we have to pay to go into Deam Lake or Buffalo Trace, if you are not a county resident, why not be charged to get into Community Park, if you are not an Indiana resident?

We do not have that many parks as it is and we all know or city and/or county could sure use the money.

-Jim Baird, New Albany

Well, one way to look at it is to separate the apples from the oranges. Accordingly, we see that Deam Lake State Recreation Area is administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and as a state facility, it’s a whole different discussion.

At Buffalo Trace, which is a Harrison County parks property, resident and non-resident alike pay to enter. However, a discount is given for county residents. Interestingly, entrance is free for bicycles and pedestrians – and as a seeming carrot for the physically fit, that’s exactly as it should be. Harrison County’s fees are explained here.

A glance at the NAFC Parks & Recreation web site shows that Floyd County also charges a full range of fees and rentals.

I don’t know why we’ve never decided to gouge Kentuckians for the privilege of using our parks, but it might have something to do with plain ol' karma. That's because there’s another way to look at it. Those Kentucky residents bypassing the dozens of parks owned and operated by Louisville Metro to frolic at Community Park are traveling to it via I-265. Accordingly, they must pass numerous stores, restaurants and other businesses on Grant Line Road while in route.

It’s inevitable that money is being pumped into the local economy by these visitors. I’d venture to say that we come out ahead in the end.

Maybe my take is skewed, but when I see cars with Kentucky plates parked at my own business, I feel pride, not dismay. Sixteen years ago, the prevailing conventional wisdom was that no self-respecting Louisvillian would cross the bridge to drink beer and eat pizza in New Albany.

But they do.

Why on earth would they? To me, it's this: Just because we're New Albanians doesn't meant we must labor under the leaden weight of an inferiority complex. It doesn't mean we can't be good at something, and do it right.

Countless others in New Albany spend their days trying to make visitors feel welcome, secure and unthreatened. It certainly doesn’t help the cause to feel suspicion toward fellow inhabitants of the metro area, and to wonder why on earth they’d want to come here.

Ask ‘em that same question aloud -- why come here? -- and chances are they will reconsider wanting to do so. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if I’ve ever heard one, and yet we hear it emanate from the conjoined obstructionist councilmen at almost every council meeting.

Sad. Very sad.