Chronicles of toll dodging in New Gahania: "Once the traffic passes Vincennes, however, there’s little there to calm it."

Am I the only one finding it bizarre that Scott Wood now is the city's de facto spokesman for street grid decisions he has played little part in making?

Isn't Wood supposed to be serving as site manager and press agent for the Summit Springs hilltop high-rise middle-finger-to-environmental-consciousness city collaboration with the Carefree Kelleys?

Then again, Gahan/Rosenbarger/Duggins are the Toxic Troika when it comes to coherence in such matters.

The bottom line remains unaltered.

Our Ever-Victorious Iron-Willed Leader deserves no credit whatever for "his" two-way street grid reform, which will be implemented both incompletely and too late to help with the opening phases of bridge tolling. Rather, Jeff Gahan prefers that we all be guinea pigs in an experiment to determine whether INDOT's rosy predictions about toll dodging's brevity are correct.

Since many commuters are taking a long weekend, we may not see the true nature of things until Monday morning.

Bridge tolls: For K-Stem, it hasn't been this good since that last lunch date with Mitch Daniels.

"Southern Indiana residents brace for impact of upcoming tolls," unless they're at Oligarch Shillworthy Pay Grade.

THE UNTOLLED STORY: Is New Albany ready for extra traffic on the Sherman Minton?, by Danielle Grady (Hiring Freeze Gazette)

NEW ALBANY — Scott Wood is expecting extra traffic in New Albany soon.

The director of the city plan commission said that he and other officials believe that when tolling begins on the Lewis and Clark, Abraham Lincoln and Kennedy bridges on Dec. 30, more cars will be using the untolled Sherman Minton Bridge to travel from Indiana to Kentucky — and some of those cars will be crossing through downtown New Albany to get there.

Wood isn’t alone in his assessment.

Traffic models created by Hannum, Wagle & Cline Engineering Inc. for the city also show that more people will be driving in New Albany in the future, Wood said.

But those models are conservative in the eyes of the city. They don’t predict there will be a significant increase in traffic during rush hour, Wood said.

Officials who are locals, such as Wood, have ideas different from HWC on how they would get from Indiana to Kentucky if they were avoiding tolls. They envision routes that might take drivers through downtown New Albany.

Still, HWC’s traffic models and the city’s predictions aren’t too different, Wood said. The expectation remains: New Albany will be busier starting in three days.

So what has been done to prepare for more drivers?

A Plan Commission docket heavy on lurid construction porn, but isn't hardcore past its prime?

The Plan Commission's web site section hasn't been updated in a year and a half (it still lists long-departed council representative Shirley Baird as a member), but at least the meeting notice e-mails still arrive, and this one's more interesting than most.

With its Hiddardendum shot popped, the school corporation has earth movers idling on standby, as do the community-minded Kelleys in their build-up to the Summit Springs PUD daisy chain.

An ever eager Scott Wood and a plan commission packed with the usual appointed suspects await conductor Gahan's baton cue to begin the Bolero, with fiddles played by animated TIF bonds in an outtake from one of Chairman Dickey's Disney flicks.

As for me, I dearly hope there's a plot twist. These in-and-outs are so very boring, aren't they?

By the way, do any of them even know what "plot twist" means?

Meeting Notice

To:             New Albany City Plan Commission

                                   

From:        Scott Wood, Director

Subject:    Regular Meeting, November 15^th, 2016

Date:         November 10^th, 2016

Tentative Agenda

The regular meeting of the New Albany City Plan Commission will be held on Tuesday, November 15^th, 2016 at 7:00 p.m., in the Assembly Room (Room 331) of the City-County Building, New Albany, Indiana, at which time a Public Hearing will be held to consider the following petitions:

Public Hearing Item(s):

None

Public Meeting Item(s):

Docket B-39-16:         New Albany Floyd County School Corporation requests a Special Exception to permit a rebuild of the existing school in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 1452 Slate Run Road.

Docket B-40-16:         New Albany Floyd County School Corporation requests a Special Exception to permit an addition to the existing school in the R-2, Urban Residential and OS (fp), Open Space (flood plain) district, at 4202 Charlestown Road.

Docket B-41-16:         New Albany Floyd County School Corporation requests a Special Exception to permit an addition to the existing school in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 1020 Vincennes Street.

Docket B-42-16:         New Albany Floyd County School Corporation requests a Special Exception to permit a rebuild of the existing school in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 2230 Green Valley Road.

Docket B-44-16:         Lisa Livingston requests a Special Exception to permit a halfway house for women in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 2106 East Elm Street.

Docket P-09-08:         Pat and Pam Kelley request a Secondary Planned Unit Development District (PUDD) for multi-family residential and commercial/office land uses in an R-1, Suburban Residential and OS (ss), Open Space (steep slope) district at 2303-2307 State Street, 220 Woodbine Drive and 2301-2320 Fawcett Hill Road.

Docket C-05-16:         Pat and Pam Kelley request a Secondary Plat approval for an eight (8) lot subdivision in a PUDD, Planned Unit Development District, at 2303-2307 State Street, 220 Woodbine Drive and 2301-2320 Fawcett Hill Road.

Other Business:

           

1)     Approval of Minutes from October 18^th, 2016 Plan Commission meeting 

Summit Springs roulette: It's a wonder that they still know how to breathe.

BREAKING: The Plan Commission has agreed to continues pimping Team Gahan's redevelopment ambitions as coupled with the Covetous Kelleys.

In other words, more of Dave Duggins' trademark boilerplate.

Shall we yawn in unison?

Summit Springs plan in New Albany moves ahead; Two hotels, restaurant planned off State Street, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — A development project that has been in the planning stages for several years and garnered opposition from nearby residents is closer to construction after a New Albany Plan Commission vote Tuesday.

The preliminary plan for Summit Springs, a 65-acre proposed commercial development on top of Fawcett Hill, was approved by the commission with a 6-1 vote. Member Doug Hosier was the only dissenting vote.

If the plan shown Tuesday night is the one put into action, the site would become home to two hotels and a restaurant along an extended Daisy Lane. Developers are calling the 37-acre portion of the land the first phase of development.

BREAKING: City of New Albany reveals big new branding logo for Summit Springs.

“Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”
― Marilyn Monroe

ON THE AVENUES: High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places.

Three hats withering to one?

Amid the five-days-of-Christmas religious advertisements being featured in the newspaper this week, there was space for another wave of incoming mayor Jeff Gahan's appointments.

Gahan names Knight police chief, among appointments ... Juliot will stay fire chief; more announcements coming next week, by Daniel Suddeath

Sherri Knight will be the next New Albany Police Chief, as her promotion was one of three appointments announced by Mayor-elect Jeff Gahan on Thursday.

Gahan confirmed Matt Juliot will retain his position as New Albany Fire Chief. He also announced that Scott Wood will be promoted to New Albany City Plan Commission Director from his current slot as Assistant Director and Zoning Officer.

Knight will replace Todd Bailey — who was appointed by Mayor Doug England in 2010 — as NAPD chief effective Jan. 1.

Speaking for myself, it's too bad to see Todd Bailey depart; as terms go, "modern" and "police" need not be contradictory. Meanwhile, Harold J. Adams of the C-J takes the story a wee bit further.

Among other appointments announced by Gahan, Scott Wood has been promoted to director for the New Albany City Plan Commission where he has served as assistant director over the past four years. That’s a position that had been held by current deputy mayor Carl Malysz under outgoing mayor Doug England. It was not clear Thursday whether Malysz would have a role in the Gahan administration.

In the city clerk's on-line directory these past four years, Malysz has been listed three times: Once as Deputy Mayor, and twice as Director of Community Development, the latter under both Redevelopment and the Plan Commission. City Hall consistently has pointed out that the deputy mayor/body double position was intended as  "ceremonial," without power and sans pay. The reporter Suddeath explained it in this city council preview from November 18, 2010: England: New Albany City Council should not cut salaries; Mayor says Malysz saves city $20k a year

The deputy mayor’s salary is comprised of about $40,000 in plan commission money, about $40,000 from Economic Development Income Tax proceeds and about $5,000 from redevelopment commission funds.

 ... Earlier this week, Coffey said a deputy mayor should not make more than the mayor. The 2008 ordinance that set the deputy mayor’s salary also raised the mayor’s annual pay by $11,000 to $75,000.

It also established a $43,000 a year salary for the director of city operations, a position that has not been held since John Wilcox stepped down shortly after England took office. The position has not been funded by the council the past two years.

Matt Denison is paid $35,000 a year for his role as Assistant Director of Operations ...

At the city council meeting of November 18, 2010, CM Dan Coffey introduced a largely symbolic resolution to gut both Malysz's and city attorney Shane Gibson's pay packets.

R-10-41 A Resolution To Cap Certain Salaries of Appointed City Officials Coffey and Hiring Freeze ... Mr. Coffey moved for the reading R-10-41, Mr. Price second, the vote did not pass with six no votes and 3 aye votes.

Although NAC covered the meeting, which will be remembered primarily as the culmination of Steve Price's fit of pique against historic preservation (Briscoe Declares for Aunt Bee), I cannot recall who cast the third vote in favor of Coffey's resolution.

All of which points to these questions: With Gahan having stated that there'll be no deputy mayor in his administration, will Wood's elevation have the effect of depriving the soon-to-be-former deputy mayor of a revenue stream? Will the director of city operations be funded, and if so, who will serve? What happens to Denison?

And: Can't Gahan just grab some some more unguarded federal money from neighborhood stabilization and give all of us a few hundred bucks for a Christmas shopping spree at Big Lots?