Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.

Call it an endorsement if you will, or think of it as my personal support, backing, seal of approval, recommendation or advocacy.

Being an independent in a situation of prevailing two-party primacy probably is a great deal harder than it appears.

Scott Blair has been elected to council twice as an "I," and he should know. I think Scott was not always as diligent as he should have been during the first few years of his council tenure as it pertains to the inherent and fatuous chicanery of Gahanism (generic mediocrity + pay-to-play monetization = Gahanism), but to his credit he did his homework and has improved with the passage of time.

Scott is accessible, and he'll return calls. His stance during the Reisz Mahal vote was especially appreciated in these circles.

I'm not seeing much from Lisa Chandler, the Democratic Party candidate, although the recent trend in District 6 has been for the Democratic candidate to be irrelevant. Is there even a Facebook page?

All three New Albany mayoral candidates attended Thursday's forum ... all of the New Albany clerk and city council candidates participated except Democratic District 1 candidate Jennie E. Collier, Republican District 3 candidate Alex Bilbrey and Democratic District 6 candidate Lisa Chandler.

It's almost as if voters in the 6th feel compelled to atone for two pre-mayoral Gahan city council terms (2004-2011) by punishing the Democrats. Chandler might have great things to say; so far, I'm unaware of them.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, Scott Evans appears to be a solid contender on the Republican side. He's been hoofing it. I've heard lots of good comments.

As I explained previously, it's just that I don't like the idea of police officers in elected positions like council. It's my own conscience and entirely personal, and it's not about being anti-police. Rather, it has to do with worrisome accumulations of power. I believe being a cop and a councilman simultaneously is a concentration of too much power in one individual.

You're free to disagree, and my ears are open to your arguments against my position. I'd love to find a loophole in my conscience to embrace otherwise fine candidates like Evans, but so far it has been elusive.

In truth, I'm also becoming increasingly hostile to the idea of lifetime sinecures and third consecutive terms.

However, given the rules as they're written, if I lived in the 6th district I'd vote for Scott Blair, and I would feel good about it.

---

Compendium:

• Vote Stefanie Griffith for New Albany City Council District 1.
• Vote Scott Stewart for New Albany City Council District 2.
• Vote for Thunder the Wonder Ferret as a write-in for New Albany City Council District 3.
• Vote Cisa Kubley for New Albany City Council District 4.
• Vote Josh "JT" Turner for New Albany City Council District 5.
• Vote Scott Blair for New Albany City Council District 6.

Council rejects Gahan's, Redevelopment's Colonial Manor tax increment financing lollapalooza by a 5-4 vote. Alterations to come?

It might surprise you to hear me say that overall, tonight's council meeting was one of the most informative in a good while. The pros and cons of Team Gahan's Redevelopment Commission resolution to spend $2.6 million to acquire the Colonial Manor property were presented, and it was rejected 5-4, with the three council Republicans and two Independents against, and the body's four Democrats in favor.

Council president Blair's pre-vote summary of the stakes involved was very good. Interestingly, the Redevelopment Commission's visiting Indy lawyer Zoeller from the firm of Frost Brown and Todd ...

 ... which is a frequent Gahan campaign donor, stated that any amendments attached by council to the resolution would require Redevelopment's approval. However council's lawyer confirmed that no amendments could be attached; it was yes or no only.

Blair aired his frustrations with the Redevelopment Commission's overall autonomy and secretive nature. He suggested Redevelopment take out an option for purchase to allow time to incorporate council's points. Al Knable and others noted that it might be the only chance we get to "do" Colonial Manor right, and so it would be advisable to take our time and resist haste.

In turning down tonight's resolution, council in effect sends it back to Redevelopment with helpful post-it notes for changes sufficient to garner future council approval. For example, a comprehensive Charlestown Road corridor study is urged to be a part of what comes back for consideration. Other caveats include a citizen advisory committee and public input meetings that genuinely seek participation and not the rubber-stamping of pre-determined outcomes.

Given that the Redevelopment Commission is regarded by Jeff Gahan as his personal plaything, and the Colonial Manor purchase with the TIF One Platinum card plainly was intended as a rushed feather in Dear Leader's re-election bonnet, things now get interesting.

Don't forget next week's listening session. There might be more tomorrow, but right now, I'm tired.

Previously:

Researcher says: "In most cases around the country TIF did not fulfill its main goal of boosting economic development."

ON THE AVENUES: Amid Deaf Gahan's "victory" over grassroots activists at Colonial Manor, the toxic paranoia is no less rancid.

City Hall's staged Colonial Manor farce: It was INFORMATIONAL, you see, not COMMENTATIONAL. Deaf Gahan can't help it if voters don't know the lingo.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: It's the Colonial Manor video Jeff Gahan didn't want you to see last night.

2-for-1? Scott Blair describes a better way to save the Reisz building AND get a new city hall.

Previously: 

Donald Trump would greatly appreciate the disruptiveness of Jeff Gahan's signature Reisz Elephant.

During the course of answering 35 questions at last Thursday's city council meeting, corporate attorney Shane Gibson attempted to navigate contradictions on more than one occasion.

For instance, Gibson argued that a minimum expenditure of $10,000,000 to render the "blighted" (and "neglected," and "dilapidated") Reisz Furniture Warehouse Store into luxurious, expanded work space for Jeff Gahan was the very best solution yet offered to the problem of salvaging the structure, while simultaneously conceding that no other options have been considered.

How can we know it's the best plan when there's nothing to compare it to?

As 6th district councilman Scott Blair (I) illustrates with this Facebook comment, plenty of options exist. It's just that Gahan, Gibson and their ship of fools won't consider them.

I agree that a better use of the Reisz building is mixed retail and residential. The city could offer less than $1,000,000 subsidy to a private developer (purchase the building for around $400,000 and $375,000 and fix infrastructure). The city would recapture the subsidy over time through property taxes. A new city hall could go into an appropriate size building or be a new build. $4,000,000 seems to be a good estimate for new construction. A site could be the parking structure next to Big Four Burgers on Main St. Advantages are lower overall cost, bringing more people into downtown, and infill of a blighted lot.

In short, two buildings -- one rehabbed, the other new -- for half the proposed expenditure. And yet an idea like Blair's HAS NOT EVEN BEEN CONSIDERED.

Redevelopment's request for proposal (RFP) period?

A whole ten days. How could this be sufficient time for other interested parties to participate -- assuming they weren't scared away by previous public statements strongly implying the single plan was a done deal. 

When it came to the two-way street grid changes, at least three traffic studies were conducted over a period of years before these statistics were handed to HWC Engineering to be ignored. Most of the final expense was borne by the federal government, and the campaign kickback gravy was especially succulent.

But $10,000,000 for the Reisz Elephant isn't being offset by a gift from afar, and Team Gahan has conducted no studies, and considered no other alternatives. It's Gahan's way, or down comes the building.

Blair's idea has one major flaw, because the work required to save Reisz and build city hall probably would not be finished before next year's elections, and completed bright shiny objects are essential to Gahan's flashcard campaign strategy.

ON THE AVENUES: Histrionic preservation? $8.5 million to gift Jeff Gahan with a new city hall "want" is inexcusable and simply obscene in a time of societal need.

ON THE AVENUES: Histrionic preservation? $8.5 million to gift Jeff Gahan with a luxury city hall "want" is simply obscene in a time of societal need. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm making up for the vacation day two weeks ago. For this afternoon's follow-up post, go here.

Back in 2014, Mayor Jeff Gahan had a prime opportunity to advance historic preservation.

A noted local contractor was willing to renovate the 150-year-old tavern building at 922 Culbertson Avenue, once doing business as Haughey’s Place, and known to a later generation as Al-Mel's. According to an oral understanding between the contractor and City Hall, Haughey’s was to be rehabilitated into the sort of street corner fixture our neighborhoods so desperately need.

Alas, poor Haughey's.

Unknown to most, a top-secret, in-house plan already was gestating to subsidize New Directions to build four houses in long-vacant lots across the street from Haughey's, and after a brief lull for campaign finance ciphering, our distinguished C-minus student/mayor abruptly reneged on saving the tavern, instead ordering the demolition of this longtime community gathering place.

ON THE AVENUES: A year later, the backroom politics of pure spite at Haughey’s Tavern still reek. (2015)

ON THE AVENUES: Now on tap at the ghost of Haughey's Place: The politics of pure spite. (2014)

Two more houses were added to the New Directions mandate, to be built atop the tavern’s vanquished, naked footprint. In 2015, to the surprise of absolutely no one, flash cards of these six finished houses (weirdly dubbed "painted ladies" by prudes unaware of prostitution's age-old vernacular) became one of Gahan’s prime re-election platform planks. Obviously, vacuous propaganda of this ilk was the primary reason for the tavern’s demolition in the first place.

Do you remember what our Genius of the Flood Plain said about the death sentence he handed to Haughey’s?

“After the construction of these homes are completed, no one will miss the dilapidated structure that was at 922 Culbertson Avenue.”

Sensitive self-monetizer, isn't he?

Four years later, these six pleasant, ordinary houses haven't made so much as a dent in terms of the city’s affordable housing crisis, and Gahan's brief, tepid interest in the topic had evaporated even before he began giggling with a poo-bah's childlike delight at his brilliant stratagem of targeting vulnerable populations at the New Albany Housing Authority for eviction and dispersal. The mayor's signature public housing putsch was greeted with fawning, slobbering approval by the Democratic Party's semi-literate bookless bootlickers.

It's June, 2018, and peak Gahanism has arrived. The Leaden Anchor-Laden Emperor has decreed that housing conditions for his staff outweigh the needs of the many, and so it seems inevitable that the “dilapidated” and “neglected” Reisz Furniture building on Main Street not only will escape the tavern’s dismal fate, but is singularly worthy of conversion into a brilliant new showpiece City Hall, one destined to gather many gushing state and national preservation awards, and some sweet day, bear the mayor’s name in awestruck tribute.

The backroom deals seemingly have been cut, the dupes corralled, and the necessary votes secured. Beaks are achieving optimal wetness. Of course, had Gahan concluded the opposite -- that a new parking garage, concert promotion bureau or gaping hole in the ground would be better to keep his gang of influence-peddlers in power -- then Reisz would have long since been reduced to rubble.

Histrionic preservationists should take pause, because it would be a mistake to rule out this purely conceivable outcome.

Other folks count sheep, Gahan enumerates wrecking balls -- and tree stumps, full-page magazine ads and anchor tattoos -- and Reisz might yet tumble earthward if the mayor doesn’t get his way.

Surely the snarling pre-emptive threats already have been transmitted via a brace of 2:00 a.m. phone calls to the minions, who silently curse the inconvenience as they bill to the mayor's dulcet coo. The envelopes are stuffed, and the globe keeps spinning.

---

Whenever Gahan, a presumed Democrat, pontificates about the Reisz project being “a move to protect our history," I sadly recall the fate of Haughey’s and so many other remnants of the city’s past, buildings that might have been adaptively re-used, but didn’t meet the threshold of narcissistic grandiloquence demanded by the mayor’s ethics-free selective reasoning and laughably elevated self-image.

In a city more allergic to irony than pollen or ragweed, Gahan’s newfound tender concern for the historical imperatives of the Reisz building is profoundly ironic, too. Do you recall those two words, “dilapidated” and “neglect”?

They’re not mine.

Rather, they come straight from Dear Leader’s mouth, via the medium of Mike Hall, the Shadow Mayor & Big Word Interpreter & Imperial Court Food Taster, and they serve as the convenient excuse for Gahan to don his Halloween leftover Superman outfit and rescue this pathetically abused historic building from the scandalous clutches of its shirker owner, who after all, has allowed it to deteriorate to the current juncture of high urgency.

Except the neglectful "villain" in this instance has been remunerated far above market value for his stubbornness. The redevelopment commission surreptitiously gifted the Reisz’s purchase price of $390,000 to the city’s preferred contractor Denton Floyd -- by sheer coincidence, a firm frequently contributing to Gahan’s campaign war chest -- which duly passed the money to the Reisz building’s owner, who as Gahan himself concedes, rendered it dilapidated in the first place.

In consequence-free Nawbany, the words “miraculous government-enabled windfall bailout” spring immediately to mind.

Eagerly abetting Gahan’s desire to erect a lasting memorial to his shimmering and saintly benevolence is councilman David “Tunnel Vision” Barksdale, a thoroughly camouflaged Republican and prominent historic preservationist, who has let it be known that the Reisz building is so very important to the city that no cost is too great to “save” it.

To summarize, for at least thirty years the structure has rotted, but only now, with a crucial municipal election coming in 2019, does time suddenly become of the essence. The decision about Reisz must be made right away, with as little transparent public debate as possible, or else the city’s forward progress will be halted dead in its tracks.

And people still wonder why I’m cynical. 

---

So it is that even by the perennially underachieving standards of New Albany political decision-making, proponents of the Reisz renovation have mustered weak, wearying and dubious arguments in support of this project.

For example, there’s the "wave the bloody shirt of macho civic pride" argument. Gahan asks how we can countenance our neglected and dilapidated (my words, not his) city department sycophants laboring in an outdated and cramped shambles of a shared city-county building owned by our mortal enemies in Floyd County government, who long ago supplanted heinous Jeffersonville as the proper object of patriotic New Albanian scorn.

In short: If the city doesn’t immediately get its own pad, that dastardly Mark Seabrook wins!

As such, Gahan proposes to improve and enlarge the work space in a future Reisz City Hall, but seriously, do a couple dozen city employees really need four times more office space in this age of the microchip, when administrative needs are ever more reduced and compacted?

Besides, no other City Hall rehousing options have been explored. None of the many other historic buildings in need of refurbishment have been considered, and new construction evidently is off the table. Not once has it been explained why the cavernous Reisz building is the only possible solution to an insignificant problem -- apart from “Big Daddy G says so.”

However, there are at least 8,500,000 solid reasons to be wary, because since the Reisz dream was announced less than a year ago, the annual cost to the city for these new digs already has more than doubled, to $570,000 per year on a handy 15-year, rent-to-own payment plan, with the necessity of TIF pledges as collateral.

Imagine how $570,000 each year might address the genuine needs of city residents, like decent housing, workforce training, transit choices or remedying our shrinking urban tree canopy. It might even finance the long overdue fulfillment of Gahan's pledge to institute rental property inspections, which he's hoping we've forgotten. We haven't. 

The most unconvincing argument of all comes from Barksdale, who claims this total investment of at least $8.5 million to provide enhanced luxury government space is fully justified because it will definitively prove at long last to skeptical townspeople that City Hall is willing to put “skin in the game.”

To support this breathtaking instance of middle school adolescent playground logic, Barksdale asserts that during the past decade, entrepreneurs and private investors have poured somewhere around $60 million into downtown.

Stopped analog clocks can be trusted twice a day, and Barksdale is correct; he may be lowballing the amount, but he's drawing a mistaken conclusion.

To understand why, consider that few, if any, of the incentives, abatements and giveaways routinely awarded by the city to corporate entities like Sazerac have yet to land in the deserving laps of these independent business operators.

They’ve gone it almost entirely alone, and an uncommon number have succeeded, and yet somehow from this reality Barksdale conjures an indie business community desperately begging the city to display insane fiscal profligacy by pumping $8.5 million into a single downtown building rather than into downtown as a whole.

It's an "all eggs into one basket" proposition, moving a small number of government employees already adequately housed a mere stone's throw away, while at the same time taking the Reisz building permanently off the tax rolls, and worse, foolishly depleting economic development resources to facilitate the wants of four-times-bigger government, as opposed to the needs of private sector employers, or more importantly, of ordinary citizens all over town who are struggling to make ends meet.

Barksdale’s elitist view of what constitutes "skin in the game" doesn't make sense. It's our "skin" as citizens, not his (or Gahan's). Simply stated, this is sheer, contrived, oblivious and unadulterated hokum.

---

Councilman Scott Blair, an independent, sensibly suggests (to Deaf ears) that "putting skin in the game" might be more effective, and more prudent financially, if mayor and council worked together to prioritize the Reisz building's redemption via the private sector, with the city devoting reasonably-scaled dollops of economic development funds and subsidies to help someone else save the building and keep it taxable.

Blair understands that what downtown stakeholders don’t really need is $8.5 million devoted to the enhancement of mayoral megalomania, while masquerading as historic preservation fetishism. However, downtown stakeholders actually do need some skin, just not in the form of a government-only housing upgrade.

They need infrastructure improvements aimed at greater walkability, bikeability and access for the disabled.

They -- we -- need more residents living downtown ... fast and modern internet access ... grassroots programs for small business ... capable workers ... a structured plan for branding and marketing ... and two-way streets -- not like Gahan’s half-assed pavement enhancement expenditure last year, but in the form of reliable transparency and regular communication from, and with, City Hall itself.

Grassroots support, not trickle down; and moreover, stakeholders in the remainder of the city need these investments and innovations, as well.

Mark these words: Gahan's chronic neglect of the periphery, and his occasional colonial abuses of outlying neighborhoods (ask Mt. Tabor Road residents "why he's here") are about to become an important campaign issue for 2019.

If it’s true that a government building stuffed with government workers can be a viable tool for revitalization -- and this notion is highly debatable -- wouldn’t it be a better idea to move City Hall to the moribund Colonial Manor shopping center on Charlestown Road, thereby helping to revitalize a “neglected” corridor that really needs it?*

Overall, considering the many issues we face citywide, ask yourself truthfully: can $8.5 million to overhaul the Reisz building for government use, and government use alone, genuinely help resolve a single one of them?

No, and anyone who thinks ordinary New Albanians-on-the-street are clamoring for this potted project has descended into self-delusion. If put to a referendum, a new or remodeled City Hall would lose at least 70% - 30%. and every ranking political suit in town knows it, hence the cloak and dagger back alley pursuit of Gahan’s and Barksdale’s narrow and expensive goal.

I generally favor historic preservation, and it was a punch to the gut to watch the wrecking ball fell Haughey’s Tavern, but it's past the time for us to recognize that preservationists are not immune to jumping the shark.

Remember when the "cost be damned" necessity of the moment was a heroic crusade to save the tiny Emery's Ice Cream building?

I, too, advocate the rehabilitation of the Reisz, but in the rational and integrated fashion suggested by Scott Blair. A final council vote remains, and it’s still possible for reason to prevail if one of four councilmen, all Democrats, come back to earth: Nash, Phipps, Caesar or McLaughlin. Courage, anyone?

The lessons of the past also mustn’t be forgotten. Gahan’s rapacious, self-serving and politically motivated calculations have brought us to this absurd juncture.

In effect, the mayor is endorsing an equation whereby Barksdale and the historic preservationist contingent assert that the Reisz building must be saved at any cost, and by extension, only government can shoulder the burden of unlimited costs since limitless money is what government is here to provide for ideas precisely like this.

Boundless money ... and for what?

A building, not people.

This is the final, infuriating insult, and it is inexplicable to me that Barksdale and the lock-step community pillars being pushed to the lectern in support of this extravagance (although not Gahan himself, who as usual, hasn't bothered to appear publicly at all) blithely favor bilking taxpayers to the tune of $8.5 million to save this single building, but when they're asked about Gahan’s eagerness to demolish public housing units without a coherent plan to rehouse the flesh-and-blood humans who’ll be displaced, they no longer have anything to say, and head straight for the exits.

Eyes turn to the ceiling, crickets chirp and pins drop. Somewhere, a dog balefully yowls.

It's the silence of the shams.

They adore bright shiny objects, not so much the vulnerable. Glorious government buildings, not persons in need. Plaques for the self-anointed pillars, not assistance for the oppressed. Disney-fried grandiosity in bricks and mortar … not human beings.

Hypocrisy on this colossal scale unfortunately isn't novel in New Albany, though it's no less sickening when it flares.

However, we can rejoice, because in less than a year, there’ll be the opportunity to rectify the robotic empathy imbalance by way of the ballot's historically restorative power.

Until then, please call your councilman and ask him (they’re all men, you know, each and every one of them) to explain how an $8.5 million City Hall helps resolve anything at all -- and if they don't hang up on you, send their answers to NA Confidential.

---

* with a nod to the Bookseller.

---

Recent columns:

June 7: ON THE AVENUES: Taco Bell has as much to do with "local business" as Jeff Gahan does with "quality urban design principles."

There was no column on May 31.

May 24: ON THE AVENUES: Long live Keg Liquors Fest of Ale, an indisputable annual beer institution.

May 17: ON THE AVENUES: Ghosts within these stones, defiance in these bones.

Throwing Reisz: The Jeff M. Gahan Luxury Government Center keeps the emphasis on buildings, as opposed to people.

Previously:

Council Monday: If we're spending $$$ "saving the neglected Reisz Furniture Building to use as a new city hall," then can we be clear as to how it became "neglected" in the first place?

Chris Morris of the Tom May Picayune has by-the-numbers coverage of last evening's council soiree, at which our new anchor-certified city hall took its first inevitable steps toward completion.

Pay close attention to Scott Blair's and Dan Coffey's comments. The council's two independent members distinguished themselves with pointed questions. They followed the money, and should be thanked for doing so.

Council Democrats? They couldn't be bothered.

The usual community pillars want a luxury city hall, and they want it badly, but the curious truth is that the razor-thin 5-4 vote carried only because yet again, quasi-Republican David Barksdale carried Mayor Jeff Gahan's damask jockstrap safely across the finish line.

Next meeting's third reading is a foregone conclusion unless Barksdale is kidnapped and spirited away to Bolivia in the interim.

Yesterday, the Green Mouse was told that during an earlier conversation about the Reisz conversion, Barksdale was asked if there was a point beyond which saving the building would no longer be financially feasible.

How much is too much?

"Whatever it takes," was Barksdale's reply.

For a building. Not human beings and their needs ... but a government building. This no longer qualifies as historic preservation. 

It's a fetish, plain and simple.

There's a famous old gag by Jack Benny, whose comic persona was that of miserly skinflint. An armed robber approaches Benny: "Your money or your life."

Stone-faced, Benny turns slowly away from the increasingly impatient robber to look at the audience.

"I'm thinking it over!"

CM Barksdale, here's $570,000 for 15 years. Shall we spend it on people or historic preservation?

He wouldn't have to think it over. 

Not at all.

When the vote was concluded, the room abruptly emptied. Seems that community pillars can follow only one topic at a time; let's hope none of them are complaining about potholes, given that paving was the subject of a lengthy discussion after their hurried departure.

In the momentary scrum, Dan Coffey looked at me and said (paraphrased): This is the mayor's project, and he should be here to advocate it. Put that on your web page.

Preaching to the choir, sir, and I already have, but let's repeat it.

Mark my words: In 16 years, or whenever the city is finished renting-to-own the Reisz building -- and assuming the Democratic Party still exists, and is in control -- there'll be a pillar-impelled movement to name it the Jeff Gahan Government Center.

Gahan, a DemoDisneyDixiecrat, who'll campaign against Republican Mark Seabrook in next year's mayoral election, will point early and often to this Reisz rehab historic preservation luxury governance project as a signature achievement of his glorious reign.

AND GAHAN COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO ATTEND THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 7, 2018. 

HE SENT MIKE HALL INSTEAD. 

Barksdale did the rest. A couple months back, when asked about his view on the mayor's hostile takeover of public housing, Barksdale -- an at-large council member representing all the city's citizens -- waved away the question.

Affordable housing?

It's not his area, and there's nothing he can do. He didn't even have to think about it.

Sickening, isn't it?

Reisz Building plan moves forward after New Albany City Council vote

NEW ALBANY — The dilapidated Reisz Building, at 148 E. Main St., moved one step closer to having a tenant Monday night after the New Albany City Council approved the first two readings of an ordinance that will turn the structure into a new city hall.

The ordinance calls for the city to enter into a lease agreement with Denton Floyd Real Estate Group. Under the agreement, the city will pay $570,000 a year rent to Denton Floyd for 15 years. In year 16, the city will outright own the building.

Denton Floyd's proposal would include $5.6 million to renovate the 23,000 square-foot building with construction beginning in July. The plan is to turn the building over to the city in July 2019 ...

 ... The city currently pays the Building Authority around $200,000 a year for rent of the City-County Building. So the deal will cost the city an additional $375,000 a year for 15 years, something that did not go unnoticed by some council members ...

"Perhaps the best solution is for Indiana to do away with its convoluted primary system and treat every political party equally."

This contribution is from 2015 in the Crawfordsville newspaper, which at first glance appears to be a Tom-May-Free Zone.

How do they survive up there?

The author Pickerill, a Republican at the time, subsequently switched to Libertarian. In 2015, he was mad as hell that crafty conniving "blue" Democrats could easily invade the inner Red Light sanctum, but the point is if there's no such thing as a "registered Republican," there aren't any "registered Democrats," either.

And, if this depiction is correct, there's nothing a party chairman could do about such an incursion or a deathbed conversion, apart from mounting the bully pulpit.

I'd consistently been under the impression that a few years back, when Dave Matthews was the chairman of the Floyd County GOP, and Scott Blair sought to run for city council as a Republican, Matthews "refused" Blair, who has twice been elected as an Independent.

Could Matthews have done that? Was it just a clever ruse? Did Matthews strongly discourage Blair, while stopping short of deploying legalistic weaponry he didn't actually possess? 

Beats me. If you're reading and can provide clarity as to a party chairman's position in a situation like this, please let me know.

There’s no such thing as a ‘registered Republican’, by John Pickerill (Journal Review)

Since being elected Montgomery County Republican Chairman in 2013, I’ve heard a lot of people claim how they’ve been a “registered Republican” for a number of years. That always puzzles me. According to Indiana state law there’s no such thing as a registered Republican (or Democrat or any other party for that matter). When you register to vote you aren’t asked which political party you belong to. And there is no mention of “registered Republican” in the Rules of the Indiana State Republican Party. So if there’s no such thing, then how do we know who is allowed to vote in a Republican primary election that decides who the Republican nominees will be in the general election? And how do we tell who is allowed to file as a Republican candidate in that primary election?

The answer is, we don’t. Anyone can vote in a Republican primary and anyone can run as a Republican candidate, even people who are radical left-wing Democrats or otherwise hostile to the principles of the Republican platform (protecting people from government interference in their lives, decreasing regulations and taxes, reducing government spending, promoting free market solutions, supporting the right to life of the unborn, supporting gun rights.)

According to Indiana law, voters are affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic Party based on how they voted in the last primary election. If you cast a Republican ballot the last time you voted in a primary election, you are automatically affiliated with the Republican Party. It doesn’t matter even if the voter is a Democratic Party officeholder. If he cast a Republican ballot last time, Indiana considers him a Republican.

At this point you might be asking yourself, why is someone who is so obviously a member of a different political party even allowed to cast a Republican ballot in the first place? Can just anyone cast a Republican ballot at a primary? The answer is yes, pretty much. On primary election day, the poll workers are given a list of every registered voter (Republican, Democrat, or otherwise) for their precinct. State law says if a person’s name shows up on that list they have a right to vote in the Republican primary, unless the voter is challenged by another Republican voter from that same precinct.

So that challenge can stop them from casting a Republican ballot, right? No, not really. That voter can go ahead and vote in the Republican primary as long as they swear (cross-their-heart-and-hope-to-die) that they voted for mostly Republican candidates at the last general election, and also intend to vote for the Republican candidates at the next general election. But it is, of course, impossible to ever prove if the challenged voter was telling the truth or not.

So it’s pretty easy for someone to fake their party affiliation. And so it’s pretty easy for anyone to run as a Republican in a red county or district, to trick enough Republican voters into thinking they’ll hold office like a Republican, and then once they get elected, to do the very opposite. When a candidate calls himself or herself “Republican” it doesn’t mean a whole lot these days. It certainly doesn’t give a voter much information about the politics of the candidate. All it really means is the candidate checked the “Republican” box on their declaration-of-candidacy form.

So how do we fix this broken system? Well, it’s interesting to note that Indiana law only dictates party affiliation for the Republican and Democratic parties. All other political parties decide party affiliation for themselves. Their own party rules determine who is allowed to vote in their process for selecting their nominees for the general election, and who is allowed to file as one of those candidates. Perhaps the best solution is for Indiana to do away with its convoluted primary system and treat every political party equally. Maybe then the Republican brand will mean something unique again. Until then, it will become more and more like the Democratic Party every year.

Befuddlement at the news as strange council bedfellows unite to defeat West Street Mews.

The News and Tribune's Chris Morris recorded the quote as 6th district council representative Scott Blair tried to explain his opposition to a townhouse development off West Street in New Albany.

(Councilman Scott) Blair had other concerns. "There are just too many units for two acres. Seems too congestive for me," Blair said.

Actually, normal usage of the adjective congestive lies in specialized medical applications, like congestive heart failure: "Involving or producing too much blood or other liquid in an organ."

We use congested to describe “clogged,” “overcrowded,” or “overfull,” as when a lifetime of eating fatty fried food leaves one with congested arteries. In like fashion, overpopulated cities and crowded roads are said to be congested.

Bankers. Can't live with 'em ... can't teach 'em the meaning of words like density and infill.

Meanwhile, "mews" might be trite and annoying developer-speak for townhouses in Coffeyville, but it jibes point by point with those same passages about infill and density included in the city's new comprehensive plan -- the one authored by Team Gahan to encourage housing precisely like this, and yet opposed last night by three of four councilman in Gahan's own sad party, plus Blair (huh?) and Dan Coffey himself.

Maybe the project's backers forgot to grease Dear Leader's re-election wheels.

We are reminded of a bedrock truth pertaining to city council politics in New Albany, which won't ever change for so long as Coffey remains a councilman, because the reason why the West End forever languishes is that Coffey himself opposes change in his own environs with clock-like regularity.

The Wizard simply cannot survive in a socio-economic habitat any different from the one he has cultivated (read: kept waaaay down) during more than two decades of underachievement. He can always get the votes he needs from absentee ballots collected at Riverview Tower; not so ironically, a building comprising public housing units slated for refurbishing rather than the guillotine.

Coffey is nothing if not consistent. Blair is nothing if not confused.

By the way, the Horseshoe Foundation non-binding resolution passed unanimously. Morris must have left the meeting before then. Ominously, with Elizabeth Beilman departed, New Albany's about to get it good and hard from Hanson's tone-deaf newspaper in terms of non-coverage -- again.

Council votes down plan for townhouses

PUDD defeated by 5-4 vote

NEW ALBANY — It's back to the drawing board for the proposed West Street Mews Development.

Thursday night, the New Albany City Council voted 5-4 to reject a PUDD request in an R-2 district at 1105-1109 West Street on third reading, which defeats the proposed ordinance. The proposal was to build 26 townhouses on the 1.9 acres of vacant property. Without a PUDD, only 12 units can be built there now under R-2 zoning laws.

"It's back to the drawing board. This puts an end to this process," said attorney Greg Fifer, who represented West Street Mews Development, after the meeting.

The development had already received approval from the New Albany Plan Commission. And one city councilman, Dr. Al Knable, said he thought it would be a great addition to the neighborhood.

"It would be nice to have this sort of dwelling in there," Knable said prior to the vote. "The key to this is owner occupied. We need more of that in town. I think it would be one of the better developments in that part of town since I was a kid."

However, after a long discussion, the change to a PUDD did not have enough support. Knable, Matt Nash, David Aebersold and David Barksdale voted for the PUDD while Scott Blair, Dan Coffey, Greg Phipps, Bob Caesar and Pat McLaughlin voted against.

Well, look at this: "Resolution Requesting Amendment of Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County Bylaws Regarding City Council Appointments."

Tonight is the last city council meeting of 2017, paving the way for the first city council meeting of 2018, which means it will be appointments season all over again.

Seems like only yesterday, doesn't it?

As it pertains to the Horseshoe Foundation board, its appointments come with a significant caveat in the context of recent ideological shifts.

New city council game of chance: Horseshoe Party Affiliation Roulette. (January 16, 2015)

In the past, the foundation has insisted that only real Democrats and genuine Republicans can attend its meetings, seeing as these are the only two parties legally allowed in God's own America, with the council expected to send one sub-species of each, meaning that the sole GOP choice for eight years running has been Kevin Zurschmiede, the council's sole Republican.

This is vitally important, given that much of New Albany's economic development planning centers on impolitely demanding money from the Foundation, especially when the TIF Credit Card is running on vapors.

Hence this interesting diversion on tonight's agenda, in the form of a polite resolution.

As currently constituted, the council's partisan breakdown reads like this:

4 DemoDisneyDixiecrats: Caesar, Phipps, Nash and McLaughlin
2 Republican: Aebersold and Knable
1 HPQR (Historic Preservation Quasi Republican): Barksdale
1 Independent: Blair
1 CFP (Coffey First Party): the Wizard of Westside

Don't ask me to handicap this one, although Scott Blair's example is an interesting way to extend this post a further two minutes until dinner.

At least twice in the past, Blair was appointed to the Horseshoe Foundation board, and was promptly batted back. Blair should be a natural to vote yes on tonight's resolution, except that he also possesses a principled objection to resolutions as non-binding wastes of the council's time --although there have been past exceptions.

Expect Coffey to be toting his abacus, all the better to determine whether this or any other proposal is calculated to Make Coffey Great Again, and if not, the proportion of axle grease needed to persuade him.

Phipps will defer to the mayor, and it may require two pre-meeting martinis to get me all the way through it.

Wish me luck.

Our City Council Thursday: Budgets, littering, furnishing and futility -- thank Jeeebus for bourbon.

“Useless laws weaken necessary laws.”
-- Montesquieu

At last evening's surreal and occasionally disjointed city council meeting, we learned that Mayor Jeff Gahan has in fact signed the beefed-up anti-littering ordinance passed by the body earlier this summer.

On Thursday night, CM Bob Caesar was to have introduced a corollary revision of ordinances pertaining to littering, this time focusing on the alley dumping and tree-cutting waste that some believe to be a province of Eco-Tech's garbage collection contract, and others the street department's daily job.

Caesar didn't attend, but the ordinance was introduced and approved on 1st and 2nd readings, now to go back into committee at the stated request of the city's single highest paid employee, corporate attorney Shane Gibson, who dominated the proceedings in the continued absence of the mayor.

My uninformed guess is that Gahan's annoyance with the previous littering ordinance as being a presumed "victory" for the GOP's councilman Al Knable was mollified by further (and in this instance proper) back channel discussion, with the result being the "balancing" ordinance of Caesar's, allowing everyone to -- dare we suggest it -- cooperate in crafting a useful and far more importantly enforceable clean-up measure.

We've been conditioned to eschew hope, although perhaps this time will be different. Of course, absolutely none of it addresses underlying socio-economic conditions that always preface the perceptions and practice of "littering," but action on this front would be far too much to hope for.

The city's 2018 budget and salary proposals were approved on 1st and 2nd readings with little discussion apart from independent (read: thoroughly isolated) councilman Scott Blair's insistence that a $500K line item for furnishings in a new city hall, as yet still on the adaptive reuse drawing board, was reason enough to amend the budget by stipulating that Gahan's plans for the governmental transfer to the Reisz building must come before council for review.

CM Dan Coffey, apparently satisfied that his recent assaults on Knable's littering ordinance had been sufficient to repay the mayor for a "historic preservation" facade grant awarded to his favored Knights of Columbus, unexpectedly joined Blair in supporting the amendment.

With Caesar absent and the council's GOP bloc once again failing to coalesce as a unit, the amendment was defeated by a 4-4 vote (ties don't count, folks).

Interestingly, Republican council member David Barksdale sided with City Hall in this vote, indicating that historic preservation is a more pressing concern to him than public vetting of expenditures.

Straight up: The Reisz-Turned-City Hall transaction is a decent enough idea, but still murky enough to merit scrutiny. It includes two other "historic preservation" building improvements, embracing both Coffey's KoC payback and the luring of the Indiana Landmarks office to New Albany.

In addition, there is an obvious element of crony corporate welfare, in that the Schmitt family finally will be paid reasonable money for a building they've plainly neglected for too long.

Vacating the current City County Building also is a middle finger to the GOP-dominated county; Gahan will be praised for his progressive commitment to adaptive reuse, while the other arm of government remains stuck in a homely, outdated structure that in a parallel universe might have been Stasi headquarters in an East German provincial city.

Consequently, Blair was absolutely correct in pressing the amendment point, because last evening's budget vote might well have been the last chance for council to wield a seeming technicality of future furnishings in order to reclaim a semblance of control over mayoral planning and spending prerogatives currently being almost entirely exercised without the legislative branch's participation.

Barksdale apparently was more interested in historic preservation sans qualifiers, and that's hardly a surprise, but shouldn't council have some say in this, too?

As we approach the end of Gahan Year Six, the council's power balance remains Democratic, though just barely. The mayor has shown no compunction in bedding down with Coffey, the politically promiscuous former Democrat turned conservative culture warrior, and a steady stream of well-placed, cash-stuffed envelopes to the Wizard of Westside have provided the fifth vote when necessary, as well as periodic theatrical obstructions and consistent comic relief.

Monetization or principle? We already know which of these Gahan will choose, every single time.

Meanwhile, an ever more dismal Caesar carries the mayor's jockstrap for the presumed Democrats, hoping that someday he might be king, and the other three Democrats usually line up behind him without question.

Blair has tried his best to be a watchdog; however, as an independent he has no natural allies and just isn't very good at making them. Knable and Barksdale are omnipresent and responsive, while David Aebersold flails ineffectually.

Well, at least there wasn't a non-binding Dreamer resolution. CM Greg Phipps mentioned DACA while refraining from the gesture; he also upheld the veracity of the two-way street reversion.

It's going to be a very long two years in what for all intents and purposes is a one-party mediocracy. After these many long years of beer, it may at last be time to delve into hard liquor, and put the hammer down -- or smash something with it.

Council approves solidarity resolution as Coffey's therapist advises him to skip yet another meeting.

Need help with voting? Just ask.

Dan Coffey didn't make it to tonight's city council meeting, although a few minutes before seven, he was busy like a beaver on social media.

Coffey pitching craft beer? New Albany never ceases to amaze.

In the Wizard's convenient and surely coincidental absence -- he also skipped a March non-binding resolution condemning white supremacy -- his colleagues inadvertently raised an interesting procedural point by unanimously approving Greg Phipp's request to insert the previously unannounced solidarity resolution into the agenda.

In short, the events in Charlottesville occurred over the weekend, past the deadline for agenda items. Because public speaking time at council meetings requires signing one of two sheets (either agenda or non-agenda items), and since there was no way of knowing the resolution would be inserted, there also was no way of knowing to sign up to speak about it.

It didn't matter this evening, but machinations like this need to be watched carefully in the future.

Of course, the motion to insert Phipps' resolution might also have garnered a "no" vote and failed the test of unanimity. Coffey would have cherished pulling this particular plug, and Scott Blair, who after a brief dalliance with pragmatism has newly rediscovered his uneasiness with non-binding resolutions, might have but didn't.

Consequently, and oddly, the newspaper's Elizabeth Beilman devotes the bulk of her coverage to two items that did NOT appear on the announced agenda: Phipps' resolution, and Tony Nava's non-agenda public speaking clinic on neighborhood issues.

Three quick questions for CM Phipps:

Exactly which Human Rights Commission?

The one you only recently (and publicly) conceded was moribund?

It's too bad Jeff Gahan built the HRC to fail, isn't it?

That sort of thing could come in handy during times like these, but there it rests, up on blocks, in the bunker's down-low garage.

New Albany City Council approves resolution condemning white supremacy displayed in Charlottesville

Councilman Blair abstains, says resolutions not council's role

NEW ALBANY — Though it bears no legal weight, a proclamation approved by the New Albany City Council on Thursday is meant to take a stand against acts of white supremacy in Charlottesville, Va. last weekend.

Entertainingly, Beilman was paying extra close attention to Blair.

While (Blair) said he agrees with its content, a non-binding resolution that makes a statement of this nature isn't the council's role, he said. Blair read from Indiana code during the meeting, which states the council passes legislation concerning "the government of the city, the control of the city's property and finances, and the appropriation of money."

Blair argued the council's role is to work on local issues and that government functions better when its sticks to its pertinent role.

"I think it's just a waste of time," he said. "For instance, I probably had more budget items I wanted to talk about but it became more of a distraction."

In fact, Blair stepped into a buzz saw.

This isn't the first time Blair said he hasn't voted in favor of non-binding resolutions of a similar nature. In the past, he said they often overwhelm council discussion.

But he did vote in favor of a resolution condemning the promotion of intolerance this March, after white supremacists and anti-Semitic fliers were posted around New Albany and on the door of a local restaurant owned by Muslim immigrants.

I'll return to Nava's thoughts tomorrow. Right now, I'm turning in.

A few questions our "community" newspaper wasn't there to ask at last evening's city council meeting.

24 hours have passed, and it's safe to assume there'll be no "community" newspaper coverage of last evening's city council meeting, unless a staffer recreates it, like the baseball announcers used to do in the studio with wood blocks and liquor bottles.

Newspaper ads? They're working for Team Gahan, all right.

In reply to my question about the presence (read: absence) of journalists at the council meeting, Mark Cassidy hit the center of the target.

Only one item on agenda so they wouldn't bother. Don't realize that you often "learn" more at those. True again.

Mark cites this case in point, last night.

Scott Blair spent roughly 30 minutes speaking about the sewer department purchasing the QRS property and the city then wanting to put a park on the majority of it. Blair had contacted the state board of accounts and that person told him it did not sound permissible. He received little support from the other council members. Al Knable seems particularly perturbed by Scott’s insistence on looking into this. Shane Gibson stood up and presented a bit of background on the purchase. He disagrees with the state board. Doesn’t understand how the state board could overrule a long term decision of the sewer board, this being the very possible need to expand in the next 10, 15, 20 years.

So many question, so few reporters. I'm just a lowly blogger, but will hazard a handful.

Why did the administration fudge these purchaser details at the time the Horseshoe Foundation fun-money grant was announced, thus perpetuating the notion (now conceded to be incorrect) that the QRS property was part of the foundation package?

Could it be because Team Gahan doesn't want to (a) delve into the state of the city's parks department finances (seen any water park numbers lately, anyone?) and (b) is even less thrilled about explaining to the public why sewer rates are going up even while there's spare thousands to throw at the parks department?

Didn't we decide the sewer utility shouldn't be using money for projects like campgrounds and walking paths?

And, if Gibson is correct (our breaths currently held to bursting), then how much sense does it make to expand the sewage treatment plant into the recreation area?

Who cleans the toilets then, the parks department or the sewer utility?

I hate to stomp all over Bill Hanson's raging self-delusion, primarily because it's too big even for my size 16s, but someone needs to say it: Newspapers exist to ask these questions.

But ya gotta show up to get in the game.

I repeat: You simply cannot convince me that the volume of ad revenue Jeff Gahan sends to Jeffersonville isn't a factor in decisions like this. Once again, I call on Hanson to show us exactly how much his newspaper makes on ads from muncicipalities -- all of them, not just New Albany.

Council Kick-Dat-Can: Looks like someone wants to open an opiate addiction treatment clinic in the 3rd council district. Could you please use your drugs out in the county?

Tonight there's a city council meeting. Maybe I'll go this time. I'd like to see Coffey wearing his "Make America Hate Again" button.

Do they offer them in beanies?

Reading between the lines ... because we're about to advance the cause of comprehensive planning by packing an advisory board with yes-men and functionaries unable to "plan" their way through a wet beer label, there must be a moratorium on the establishment of clinics dealing with opiate addiction, at least until such a time as the comprehensive luminaries establish which beaks are to be wetted by which subterranean sluices of campaign finance enhancement (Opiate Clinic Section), this delay coming at a high tide of local opiate addition, but Hunter S. Thompson had Richard M. Nixon say, "Fuck the doomed," and as Mayor Jeff Gahan once remarked about the impoverished among us ... say, can't we just dump them out in the county somewhere?

They'll still vote Democratic, right? And then Seabrook can take care of them.

The resolution reproduced above is credited to Greg Phipps, which may be because whatever opiate addiction clinic is being proposed will land in his district, or owing to the luck of the "introduce this ordinance" draw, or even as an insider joke played by Paddy Mac, so the biggest unanswered question is whether the Scott Blair Resolution Vote Coin Flip will result in an actual vote (gasp) or another abstention on the basis of "none of my business except when it is, according to criteria so obscure that even Dr. Strange couldn't decipher them."

If the opiate addiction clinic sure to have been mentioned somewhere in a back corridor is to be located in Blair's council district, the answer should be obvious:

Resolutions. Good!

At least he has the Rice Bowl. Wake me when it's over, will you? The Green Mouse is on holiday this week, aiming to prove whether it is possible to get drunk enough to endure Wednesday morning.

"NAY," screams city council, "WE DON'T WANT TO SEE THE MONEY!"

A regular NAC reader writes:

Scott's trying for accountability here and the council says "nay!" What is a council for? I've never seen a town with so much going on and no one demanding any accountability from the administration. This is where corruption begins. How much in debt is the city from all these bond issues? Wait until the tax rates shoot through the roof, that's when New Albanians will get pissed and by then it's too late. And - in the end - residents get what they deserve for sitting on their hands and remaining silent.

Maybe it's a case of pre-Harvest "business luncheon" giddiness, or more likely, the political isolation of an independent as a critical election looms. At any rate, we're only two seasons in, and already the aquatic center has taken its place as sacred cow atop the third rail.

Hmm. I want to know about Bicentennial finances, CM Blair wants to know about aquatic center finances, and we're both being stonewalled.

Anyone know CM Blair's position on two-way streets? Just curious, that's all.

New Albany City Council denies councilman's request for aquatic center income report, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

Majority call financial request 'micromanaging'

NEW ALBANY — Councilman Scott Blair's request for an income statement on the River Run New Albany Family Waterpark was thwarted by his colleagues Monday evening.

"I think it's important we understand the amount of revenues we're generating and the amount of expenses we're incurring, especially when you look at a revenue producing facility like the aquatic center," Blair told the council during a regular meeting.

Other council members voted against the request, many claiming the move was a form of micromanaging city departments and overstepping legislative boundaries.

"I think as long as the parks department is in their budget, we shouldn't question that," Councilman Greg Phipps said.

However, Blair believes it's the council's responsibility to examine all matters of money, as it's the body that creates the city budget.

In addition to revenue and expenses, an income statement could track the park's performance over time. That's common practice for city aquatic centers, Blair said.

"If you all don't want to be fiscally responsible and get information in order to make decisions, that's up to you," Blair responded.

Hmm. I want to know about Bicentennial finances, CM Blair wants to know about aquatic center finances, and we're both being stonewalled.

You don't think there's a pattern of non-transparency in Team Gahan, do you?

Stop me if you've heard this one before, Mt. Taborites: "They’re looking at it as more of an arterial road to move traffic though than a quality of living project."

Pants on fire: Yep, John Rosenbarger is quoted here.

At Thursday's council meeting, the depth of the rift between the 6th district's representative Scott Blair and the inhabitants of Jeff Gahan's Down Low Bunker was made open, evident, early and often.

CM Blair opened council comments with a fierce roundhouse directed at controller Linda Moeller, who was asked pointedly why the city hadn't yet gotten around to cutting a check for the homeless coalition, and whether the delays constitute blatant obstruction.

Given that city controllers tend to be political appointees with no real power, Blair's complaint must be viewed as aimed squarely at the absentee emperor himself, and no sooner had the ubiquitous mayoral flunky David Duggins bounded to the podium to proclaim "the check's in the mail" than Blair shifted the discussion to the project to make Mt. Tabor Road more auto-centric while pretending the millions have something to do with pedestrian safety -- a particular specialty of the regime.

Both Blair and council colleague Al Knable pointed to three major points that must be resolved before the euphemistically-styled "Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project" proceeds to shovel stage.

• ADA sidewalk concerns; in short, must there be a sidewalk on both sides of the street because ADA says so, or is a sidewalk on one side only sufficient?
• The ultimate disposition of the Mt. Tabor-Klerner intersection; the roundabout was removed because City Hall was scared, and a stop light slated to replace it, but residents have expressed a preference for the four-way stop to remain.
• Persistent stormwater abatement issues in the neighborhood. 

On Thursday, Blair and Knable decried the "open house" plan of operations for Monday's public spoon-feeding session, which strongly resembles the bridges junta's model from five years ago as well as Team Gahan's ongoing propensity to dispense the latest fait accompli (look it up, corporate attorney) as decided behind closed doors.

A public project review and open house is set for Aug. 22, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 1752 Scheller Lane, New Albany, in the basement area. Representatives from the engineering consultants for the project, Beam, Longest, and Neff, along with city officials will be available to answer questions or concerns brought up by neighbors.

Did you know that it's been three months since City Hall bothered to post a press release at its "breathlessly official information" web site? However, it has been only three weeks since this, so partial points will be awarded.

Meanwhile, consider this case from Ohio.

Sound familiar? I can't agree with all the objections voiced by the Mt. Tabor Road residents, but from the very beginning, they've grasped an essential point, because the "project" has been one designed to make the road usable by an increased number of cars, and an increased number of cars means a decreased quality of life.

Blair's probably right in this instance. However, the biggest revelation would be if he were able to publicly apply the same logic to one-way streets downtown.

Toledo Neighbors Fight Back Against City’s Plan to Widen Their Road, by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog)

 ... This $12 million widening project isn’t all bad. Replacing a couple high-crash intersections with roundabouts would be a legitimate win for safety. And the plan calls for adding a sidewalk on the east side of the road.

But the lack of concern for surrounding residents and intense focus on providing wide lanes for car traffic is troubling residents like Dana Dunbar, an Ottawa Hills resident who has also lived in Toledo’s Old Orchard neighborhood. Dunbar says she thinks the city is missing a big opportunity, potentially undermining one of the healthiest residential and commercial areas in the region.

Dunbar concedes that the four existing lanes, at about nine feet each, are awfully narrow and make driving on Secor a hair-raising experience. But the city’s plan, funded by a federal Air Quality and Congestion Mitigation grant, seems to trade one safety problem for another. Studies have shown 12-foot lanes — a standard better suited for interstate highways than residential areas — promote speeding and undermine safety. The Federal Highway Administration, recognizing this, recently eliminated lane-width standards for lower-speed roads like Secor.

“They’re looking at it as more of an arterial road to move traffic though than a quality of living” project, said Dunbar.

Council frivolity, slice of the second part: "Gahan Cares More About Concrete Than People."

Thanks to Mr. B for these photos.

John Rosenbarger sat at his desk. Outside his door, the clamor of the peasantry could be heard amid the clatter of pitchforks.

He spat, then threw back his last shot of fiery sarsaparilla.

“The grandeur of my physique, the complexity of my worldview, the decency and taste implicit in my carriage, the grace with which I function in the mire of today’s world – all of these at once confuse and astound the buffoons at Mt. Tabor and Klerner Lane."

Rosenbarger gazed at his reflection in the framed portrait of Robert Moses.

"But Jeffie's got my back, bro."

New Albany residents concerned road construction will lead to more flooding; Council passes resolution to support NAFC Schools referendum

NEW ALBANY — Residents in neighborhoods near Silver Slate Creek have concerns that upcoming road construction will make flooding issues much worse.

Nearly 20 New Albany residents turned out at the New Albany City Council meeting Thursday to voice their concerns over a project that will widen Mount Tabor Road. New storm grates would mean drainage would go directly into the creek in the residential area.

Harvey Hamilton, who lives on Creek View Circle just in front of the creek, said he's been there 34 years and only started seeing issues four to five years ago.

“Silver Slate Creek starts right behind our house,” he said. “There's about a six or eight-foot pipe there that dumps where the creek starts. Now we've had five trees that have lost roots and washed across the creek. The cable people and the electric people moved their boxes up on the street.

“We're losing ground and losing trees. We appreciate anything you can do for us.”

For one resident, Team Gahan's congenital secretiveness has made the problem worse.

“It was my knowledge that plans for such projects have to be public, located somewhere within the county building where people who were affected could come and take a look at them and to my knowledge these people have said they've had trouble locating said plans."

6th district councilman Scott Blair, who helped the neighborhood slay the nasty Rosenbarger Roundabout back in '13, assured his constituents that he'd sponsor an openness resolution in council -- though he'll need to consult his Mutable Principles Book to see whether he can vote in favor of his own idea.

(Blair) wants to initiate a public meeting with the project engineers to keep the people updated on any changes that have been made and to refresh anyone's memory on the project that was initiated three years ago.

Bankers; you can't trust 'em, and even North Korea won't take 'em off your hands.

Unsurprisingly, the CoffeyCopperHead did not hesitate to strike: That hi-falootin' wee-fee dunnit.

“I still go back to $600,000 for WiFi for downtown. How far would that go to help this problem and that only goes to benefit very few people.”

Yes, "them people" again.

The summary:

The roundabout was removed from the plan in 2013, and the sidewalks are needed, but not unless the overall intent is narrowing lane widths and slowing traffic. These people rightly fear that road "improvements" will attract further traffic and make their drainage issues even worse. It's hard to argue against this point of view, but Jeff Gahan -- perhaps NA's least communicative mayor ever -- doesn't even try.

Hence the signs, and the pitchforks. If only we'd start using the latter.

(Part One)

Council frivolity, slice number one: The council makes mad passionate love to a "referendumn."

Pretty soon the Jeffersonville paper will be reduced to hiring temps to cover New Albany news. Does Bill "Publisher of the Year for Profits" Hanson really believe ten months of neglect doesn't show on a daily basis?

It isn't that this week's revolving replacement reporter fails to note the highlights of the city council meeting on Thursday evening, which I couldn't attend owing to this being my family reunion weekend.

Rather, it is this: The primary reason for having a beat reporter in the first place is to allow the reporter time to contextualize, and to extract the important bits from the bilge.

However, it's all we have, so we'll use what we can. First, the council's embrace of the school corporation's $87 million referendum.

New Albany residents concerned road construction will lead to more flooding; Council passes resolution to support NAFC Schools referendum.

RESOLUTION FOR REFERENDUMN PASSES

The council voted 8-0 in favor of supporting the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools referendum, with Coffey abstaining.

He cited concerns with the city taking schools out of neighborhoods, where parents can be involved, and leaders worrying too much about school buildings over students and teachers.

“Let's get back to the basics,” he said. “Quit worrying about buildings and worry about (teaching the children).”

Other council members spoke on the merits of having nice school facilities — it can be a greater learning environment and bring students back to their hometown to raise families if the amenities are good.

Councilman Greg Phipps also brought up that newer or upgraded facilities can more easily and safely be locked down in an active shooter situation.

(Alternative spelling of "referendum" is the paper's, not mine.)

Passage of the resolution was a foregone conclusion, but the final score is interesting for three reasons:

1. Once again, Scott Blair somehow located a banker's top-secret special exception to oft-stated principle about the disposable meaningless of council resolutions, and voted in favor of this one. That't two in a row, Scott. When exceptions become the rule, they're no longer exceptions.

2. Once again, Dan Coffey repeatedly stated opposition to a measure, only to meekly abstain when the vote came down. We've seen this so many times over the years that it has ceased to be novel, even if it remains grimly fascinating, as though watching as 71-year-old Pete Townshend tries (and fails) to smash his guitar.

3. Did Greg Phipps really say this -- and if so, given his support for gun control, was it a facetious remark, the snark of which eluded the reporter?

I suspect it was. It's all about context, Bill. It genuinely matters to those of us who actually live here, as opposed to Alabama. Can we have our reporter back yet, or are you passing the savings along to yourself?

(In Part Two, Timosoara meets Klerner Lane)