If nothing else, he balanced the stonewalling: Team Gahan has yet to account for the handily vanished financials of the Bicentennial Commission.

Back in 2011, when the city of New Albany was preparing for its gala Bicentennial celebration in 2013, the guiding force behind the Bicentennial Commission was 2nd district councilman Bob Caesar.

The commission itself was chartered to exist, then to dissolve once the party was over. Here's the ordinance.

BI-CENTENNIAL COMMISSION

§ 33.165 CREATION.
(A) There is hereby created the New Albany Bi-Centennial Commission.
(B) The membership of the Bi-Centennial Commission shall be composed of nine citizen members, five appointed by the Mayor and four appointed by the Common Council. The terms of office of the membership shall be for the period of time commencing with appointment and concluding at midnight on December 31, 2013. The Mayor and Common Council may remove and appoint its members at will.
(C) The mission of the Bi-Centennial Commission shall be to plan, coordinate and implement projects and events to celebrate the city’s bi-centennial. The Bi-Centennial Commission shall work with local citizens, businesses, organizations and institutions to accomplish its mission.
(D) The Bi-Centennial Commission shall adopt by-laws. These by-laws shall address such issues as meeting times and places, rules for the conduct of meetings, and other rules for the efficient operation of an advisory commission.
(E) The Bi-Centennial Commission shall appoint members to an advisory committee that it will work with to engage local citizens, businesses, organizations and institutions to accomplish its mission.

(Ord. G-09-06, passed 3-19-2009; Ord. G-12-01, passed 2-6-2012)

It somehow was determined to publish a book, as eventually to be written by a Tennessee-based freelancer when of course local writers might have been chosen to inject genuine feeling into the project, but then again the Bicentennial itself sank beneath the weight of same-old-generic-planning.

On November 16, 2011 the newspaper laid out the parameters of the tome to come.

New Albany Bicentennial Park moving ahead, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

BOOK DEAL

In related news, Caesar updated the redevelopment commission on the status of a bicentennial book being prepared for release next year.

To produce and print 5,000 copies of the book will cost $144,000, Caesar said.

“I know that’s a lot of money, but there’s a lot of work that goes into these,” he said.

Redevelopment funds were used as a loan to the bicentennial commission to get the book started, and Caesar said the advance will be paid back after sales start accumulating.

Standard copies of the book will be sold for $40, but 200 limited editions will be sold for $200 through an invitation process, Caesar said.

As Caesar said the $144,000 will be derived from donations to the cause, proceeds from the book sales will go straight to funding bicentennial activities.

About $107,000 of the production total has already been raised, Caesar said.

He added the book will be extremely detailed and an appropriate representation of New Albany’s history.

“We feel there won’t be any problem selling it,” Caesar said. “These stories will have flavor to them.”

With the preceding as background, and not forgetting that others intimately involved with the workings of the Bicentennial Commission subsequently raised public questions about the group's financial operations (see here and here), allow me to review the chronology detailing the city's refusal almost six years later to release the commission's financial records.

And if the city actually does not possess financial records from an entity chartered by ordinance and subject to the same rules and regulations as any other, exactly what does this say about the city's commitment to any rules or regulations?

Background 2011 – 2014

New Albany 2nd district city councilman Bob Caesar became chairman of New Albany’s Bicentennial Commission at its inception in 2011. In June 2013 former Bicentennial Commission treasurer Vic Megenity asked City Council for an audit of the commission (links above), citing concerns over expenditures which he alleged had not been addressed either by the commission or Mayor Jeff Gahan. Council voted against the audit.

In January 2014 at a city council meeting I asked Caesar about the status of the special Bicentennial book, Historic NEW ALBANY Indiana: By the River's Edge, which was published thanks to a “loan” of indeterminate amount in 2011 from the Redevelopment Commission to the Bicentennial Commission; the book's cost supposedly was $140,000, or $28 per book for 5,000 books).

There was no reply.

2015

A year later, in April of 2015 at another city council meeting, I again asked Caesar for financial records detailing the committee’s activities. Specifically I sought details about the book: How was it contracted, published and sold? What was the status of the Redevelopment Commission’s loan, without which the book wouldn’t have been published at all? Had it been repaid?

At the time, and up to the present day, these books were being routinely gifted by Mayor Jeff Gahan at ribbon cuttings and public ceremonies. If the original press run hadn’t been sold, how many books remained? Where were they being stored? Who paid for them? Was it wholesale or retail?

Publicly in front of his council colleagues at this 2015 meeting, Caesar said he would get the information for me. By early June, I’d heard nothing, so I e-mailed him.

Monday, June 08, 2015:
“Do you recall a few weeks back, when I spoke a city council and expressed interest in learning about the state of the Bicentennial finances? Consider this my follow-up.”

The following day, Caesar replied.

Tuesday, June 09, 2015:
“None of the financials are on line. They are upstairs under a lot of stuff. I can tell you all bills are paid, and paid on time. All reporting to the state is done. And we did not use all of the city money. There was about 5 to 10K that stayed in the city funds … Give me a little time and I’ll get them.”

Roughly 118 days passed, and I tried again in an e-mail on October 5, 2015: “I was reminded that it's been a few months. Do you have this (book) information yet?”

Caesar did not respond to the e-mail, but I saw him at Harvest Homecoming just a few days later and asked whether he received the e-mail. He nodded assent. I told him there was no particular hurry, but I'd love to see the figures. He said okay.

I did not hear from him after that. Ever.

2016 Request and Public Access Complaint

On June 6, 2016 at yet another city council meeting, I used my public speaking time to ask Caesar about my information request.

Now, more than a year later, his memory apparently failed him. He couldn’t recall our previous public chats in the council chamber, or our e-mails correspondence -- and he'd turned petulant.

I reminded him that 418 days was a long time to wait for public records, and he replied, "You know, I think they're on-line now."

I asked him if there was a URL.

He replied: "I don't know."

(The next day I searched, and the records weren’t on line.)

Our last city council meeting conversation on June 6, 2016 concluded this way.

Baylor: "If you're not going to get me these numbers, I can file a FOIA request."

Caesar: "Okay."

Baylor: "So, is that what I must do -- file a FOIA?"

Caesar: "You can if you want to."

Consequently I submitted this request to corporate attorney Shane Gibson.

---

Roger A. Baylor
NA Confidential
1117 East Spring Street
New Albany, Indiana 47150

10 June 2016

Shane Gibson
Corporate Attorney
City of New Albany, Indiana
Hauss Square
New Albany, Indiana 47150

Dear Mr. Gibson:

Under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act § 5-14-3-1 et seq., I am requesting an opportunity to obtain copies of public records that pertain to the financial dealings of the Bicentennial Commission, the creation and operation of which is detailed in New Albany’s code of ordinances (33.165; attached).

The period being requested encompasses the Bicentennial Commission’s inception through the present time.

Details should include all bids, contracts and expenditures for Bicentennial Commission activities, prime among them the process through with the Bicentennial book (“Historic New Albany, Indiana: By the River’s Edge,” by James Crutchfield) was contracted, published and sold, and the status of the Redevelopment Commission’s loan to make publication of this volume possible.

As part of this request, I am requesting to know the current status of inventory with regard to these books. If books remain unsold, how many remain, and where are they stored? Also, when a Bicentennial book is given away at a public ceremony, who paid for it? These invoices are to be considered part of this request.

As part of this request, I am further requesting copies of the official e-mail correspondence between Robert Caesar and other members of the Bicentennial Commission pertaining to these plans and transactions.

I would also like to request a waiver of all fees in that the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of what it cost to honor the city’s Bicentennial, and how these decisions were made, under the aegis of a free press (NA Confidential blog). My request is strictly for news gathering purposes and is not being sought for commercial purposes.

The Indiana Access to Public Records Act requires a response time within seven business days. If access to the records I am requesting will take longer than seven days, please contact me with information about when I might expect copies of the requested records.

If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.

Thank you for considering my request.

Sincerely,

Roger A. Baylor

---

On June 16, 2016 Gibson acknowledged my information request and stated that there would be a response by July 8, 2016.

July 8 came and went. Approximately three months later, having received no communication of any sort from Gibson, I sought the opinion of the Indiana Public Access Counselor, who accepted my complaint, informed Gibson about it, and set a date of December 5, 2016 for the counselor to hand down a decision.

Then on November 30, with the access counselor’s ruling imminent (both Gibson and I received an e-mail to this effect), Gibson finally replied.

In essence, he said I could have only what I didn’t ask for, and as for the rest of the financial records of the Bicentennial Commission, these were unavailable: “The city does not possess the above referenced items.”

To summarize, the city had formed a commission to spend several hundred thousand dollars. Caesar conceded they were in his possession. He would not produce them, and presumably because a councilman was keeping public records in his garage, attic or at the landfill, the city could not produce them either.

To reiterate: Given the intent of Indiana's public access laws and the obligation of city officials to produce information when requested, Caesar's and Gibson's tandem obfuscation constituted a thumbing of noses at the law. In 2016 I chose not to pursue the issue any further; I had a life to live and things to do, and 600 days is a long time to wait for what should have taken a person with a conscience roughly ten minutes to produce.

Thus I conclude with the same question I've been asking all these years: If Gibson, Caesar, Gahan and whomever else participated in the wretched shamefulness worked this hard to avoid providing information about a "mere" three hundred thousand dollars, to what lengths will they go to duck and over when the sums get real?

You can do as you please, but I won't vote for people who can't be trusted.

Team Gahan's failure to fulfill open records requests? That's Gahan's political conspiracy against transparency, and it's HIS problem, not anyone else's.

Post YOUR #GahanShoppingCart photos. Here are two to get things started.

I'm not recommending you shop at Kroger, but if you do, find a cart with Mayor Monetizer's mug on it, pick a clever item or two and show us the results.

E-mail or message me, or post in the comments at Facebook: NA Confidential, and use the hashtag #GahanShoppingCart

---

Budget hearing cue ball personality cult revelation: It's the Redevelopment Commission paying to put Jeff Gahan's face on shopping carts. (September 1, 2017)

At least that's what the highest paid attorney in city government said during recent city council budget hearings.

Mr. Phipps asked if the ads on the shopping carts would come out of that.

Mr. Gibson stated he thinks that comes out of redevelopment because it is with the parks aspect.

Did Shane mean aspect -- or aspic?

What a relief to know that taxpayers are footing the bill to place Jeff Gahan's mug on every inanimate object with or without wheels. I foolishly thought perhaps the mayor would be paying for re-election campaign ads from his campaign war chest. I have so much to learn.

Thanks, Mr. Joshua. The mayor will let you know when he needs a tithe from the New Albany Housing Authority.

Previously:

Scraping rock bottom: Jeff Gahan brings his cult of personality to Kroger shopping carts. But who paid for these political ads?

ON THE AVENUES: Take this cult of personality and shove it (2017 remix).

Now it's been 1,340 days since Bob Caesar and the city of New Albany began stonewalling our legitimate request for Bicentennial Commission records. Can't someone just tell us about the unsold books?

Is that a Crutchfield, or is he just happy to see us?

It had been only 600 days back on December 4, 2016. My, my; how non-transparency time flies when you're Team Gahan erecting walls against disclosure. It's a beautiful day, so let's revisit the story of how City Hall flatly refused(s) to share the financial records of how our pillars of officialdom celebrated Bicentennial Year Zero End Times in 2013.

That's right. Six years ago.

As a side bar, this:

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Why does City Hall demand financials from the county parks department when it eternally refuses to divulge its own River Run Gahan Water Dome numbers?

For a more comprehensive survey of what transpired in New Albany during the Bicentennial Year Zero End Times in 2013, go here.

(1 of 2): It has been 600 days since I asked Bob Caesar to show us the Bicentennial accounts, but at last, an entirely unsatisfactory answer has been proffered.

All we really wanted to know is how well those hired-gun Bicentennial books had sold, how many of the 5,000 (!) remained to be sold, and whether Redevelopment's loan was ever paid back. At the time, we were fairly gripped with mercenary gala nostalgia just thinking about it.

I've been trying to make sense of it ever since, and this brings us to the present.

---

It was almost exactly 600 days ago when I first asked Councilman (and former Bicentennial Commission chairman) Bob Caesar in public during city council speaking time to see the commission's records.

Specifically, I asked for information pertaining to the commission's showpiece bicentennial book: How much it cost, who paid the bill, how many were sold, and how many remain.

There were follow-up e-mails with Caesar, in one of which he voluntarily acknowledged having these records (below), as well as further public reminders during council meetings. However, the records were never produced.

Circa March 2016, after a year had passed, I brought it up again during a council meeting, and Caesar opted for open evasion. He claimed the records are available on-line (untrue then, as now), and then waved off my reminder by saying I could file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) public record request if I wished.

So I did.

The city's corporate attorney Shane Gibson promptly acknowledged receiving my request, provided an equally timely date for it to be honored, then ignored his own deadline, waiting 21 weeks to act. This prompted me to file a complaint with the Indiana Public Access Counselor.

Last week (November 30), with the counselor's decision imminent, Gibson e-mailed me. He said I could have what he was willing to let me have (tax records and council meeting minutes, for the most part), but not what I specifically requested.

Here's the letter.

Following is the relevant text from Gibson's letter (above), in which he responds to my specific requests item by item. They're my original words from the initial request, with Gibson's replies underlined.

Requested Items:

Details should include all bids, contracts and expenditures for Bicentennial Commission activities, prime among them the process through with the Bicentennial book (“Historic New Albany, Indiana: By the River’s Edge,” by James Crutchfield) was contracted, published and sold, and the status of the Redevelopment Commission’s loan to make publication of this volume possible.

Response: The City does not possess the above referenced items.

As part of this request, I am requesting to know the current status of inventory with regard to these books. If books remain unsold, how many remain, and where are they stored? Also, when a Bicentennial book is given away at a public ceremony, who paid for it? These invoices are to be considered part of this request.

Response: The request for inventory is not a request for public records, however, the City does not possess any such document that details inventory. The City does not possess any of the other above referenced items.

As part of this request, I am further requesting copies of the official e-mail correspondence between Robert Caesar and other members of the Bicentennial Commission pertaining to these plans and transactions.

Response: The City does not possess the above referenced items.

Now, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Gibson would treat my information request in a spirit of spiteful nonchalance. It's what Team Gahan does.

At the same time, strictly speaking, he's probably telling the truth by means of carefully chosen words, and this is something I can at least appreciate. He says the city does not possess the referenced items, not that the referenced items do not exist. Presumably, someone else possesses them, and this certain someone undoubtedly is Caesar himself.

Because: Caesar previously admitted possessing them. Turning back the clock to June, 2015, here is my e-mail question to Caesar, followed by his reply.

Monday, June 08, 2015:
Do you recall a few weeks back, when I spoke a city council and expressed interest in learning about the state of the Bicentennial finances? Consider this my follow-up. So many things are happening that I let it slip, but I was (and remain) serious about seeing these numbers.

Tuesday, June 09, 2015:
None of the financials are on line. They are upstairs under a lot of stuff. I can tell you all bills are paid, and paid on time. All reporting to the state is done. And we did not use all of the city money. There was about 5 to 10K that stayed in the city funds.

That's right, folks.

Not on-line where the public might view them, and not even stored in an accessible public office, but "upstairs under a lot of stuff." Welcome to accountable governance, Nawbany-style.

To repeat, the records I've been requesting for over a year and a half, which detail the activities of a municipally-chartered body, one that by Caesar's own admission made use of at least a portion of taxpayer money to finance its activities, are not available at City Hall, where they should be filed, but "upstairs," perhaps in Caesar's attic, or (at the time) his former jewelry business.

That's incredible.

Consider also that by the spring of 2016, when Caesar sarcastically contended the commission's records were available on-line, he knew there was no way this assertion could be true, as it implied that someone attached to the city had taken the records from their resting place "Upstairs at Caesar's," except this surely didn't happen. If it did happen, and the records were transferred to City Hall to be scanned, why couldn't Gibson find them? What happened to them?

And so on, and so forth. Sadder still, there's no way of knowing if the records aren't currently taking up space in the landfill.

But bicentennial books definitely still exist. What about them?

At the time of the Bicentennial Commission's iron Luddite grip on the city's anniversary celebration, Caesar's own repeated public utterances suggested that 5,000 books were to be produced at a cost of $144,000 ($28 and change per book), and we know that seed money to accomplish this came from the Redevelopment Commission, following a farcical effort to extort money from the Southern Indiana Tourism Bureau.

In fact, Caesar told the council that profits from book sales would help pay for the cost of hiring an out-of-state-freelance writer and other publishing-related expenses. To put it gently, bountiful apocryphal evidence suggests that Caesar's dream scenario didn't come to fruition, which makes Gibson's reply last week even more potentially disingenuous.

Because: While the commission's records may not be within the city corporate attorney's possession, plenty of the books apparently remain in the city's loving reach, to be handed out by the mayor like Halloween candy at ribbon-cuttings and other civic events, as shown in this photo I took in 2015 at Underground Station. Look for the paving stone under the mayor's arm.

Gibson again: "The request for inventory (of books) is not a request for public records, however, the City does not possess any such document that details inventory. The City does not possess any of the other above referenced items."

If so, where is the mayor getting his many copies of the book?

Did he purchase them himself?

Are they stacked at his garage?

Shouldn't the Bicentennial Commission's records explain all this?

Shouldn't those records be available for public perusal, since public money was used to finance the bicentennial festivities?

Why can't just one of these persons -- any one of them, just take your pick -- man up, answer these questions and provide the requested records?

I know nothing will come of this, but by any measure of ethics as applied to elected officials, Bob Caesar's behavior in this instance merits censure by the city council. At the very least, perhaps other council members can help Caesar understand that when he has spent 600 days sidestepping what should be a simple information request, it makes the council look bad as a whole, as well as feeding suspicions that Caesar has something to hide.

Caesar is a self-styled budget hawk, constantly making references "for the record" about the grave necessity of paying close attention to the financials and accounting for every dime of public money.

Except when the jeweler fancies himself a publishing mogul. Below is the ordinance establishing Caesar's personal plaything commission.

BI-CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
§ 33.165 CREATION.
(A) There is hereby created the New Albany Bi-Centennial Commission.
(B) The membership of the Bi-Centennial Commission shall be composed of nine citizen members, five appointed by the Mayor and four appointed by the Common Council. The terms of office of the membership shall be for the period of time commencing with appointment and concluding at midnight on December 31, 2013. The Mayor and Common Council may remove and appoint its members at will.
(C) The mission of the Bi-Centennial Commission shall be to plan, coordinate and implement projects and events to celebrate the city’s bi-centennial. The Bi-Centennial Commission shall work with local citizens, businesses, organizations and institutions to accomplish its mission.
(D) The Bi-Centennial Commission shall adopt by-laws. These by-laws shall address such issues as meeting times and places, rules for the conduct of meetings, and other rules for the efficient operation of an advisory commission.
(E) The Bi-Centennial Commission shall appoint members to an advisory committee that it will work with to engage local citizens, businesses, organizations and institutions to accomplish its mission.
(Ord. G-09-06, passed 3-19-2009; Ord. G-12-01, passed 2-6-2012)

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Why does City Hall demand financials from the county parks department when it eternally refuses to divulge its own River Run Gahan Water Dome numbers?

Hypocrisy much?

The Green Mouse reports that City Hall's "corporate" attorney Tom Hagen ...

 ... wait, make that Shane Gibson -- has filed a “Freedom of Information Act” request with the Floyd County Park Department asking for an accounting of all monies spent for Kevin Hammersmith Park.

Actually, hypocrisy may be too mild a word.

For those readers with impossibly long memories, the River Run Family Water Park (colloquially known as the Gahan Dome) opened on June 26, 2015 -- just in time to serve as a centerpiece of the mayoral re-election effort. Daniel Suddeath covered the debut for the local chain newspaper.

Water slides, splash pads and a lazy river await inside the park, which was completed as part of Mayor Jeff Gahan’s $19.6 million quality-of-life improvement plan ...

 ... The $19.6 million bond floated by the city footed the construction of the aquatic center, Silver Street Park and upgrades to Binford Park. In April 2014, the redevelopment commission accepted Krempp Construction’s base bid of $6.89 million to construct the aquatic center.

The commission approved an alternate provision for the construction in a build-out of the concessions area, which was expected to be added by officials. The project saw just one more change order, which brought total construction to about $7.5 million.

Mamas, don't let your grandchildren grow up to be saddled with Jeff Gahan's debts.

From this day forward, we've been eager to see the financials of the aquatic center, which after all is open for business only 2-3 months a year and has been noteworthy for providing gainful summertime employment for some members of the mayor's immediate family.

To the Green Mouse's knowledge, the city has steadfastly resisted releasing the financials of the water slide for four years, almost surely because they're not pretty, or contain buried land mines; for instance, how is the aquatic acreage connected with the new fire station's monthly disbursements?

Following is the closest thing we've seen to a spread sheet in four years. It's the parks director Alicia Meredith's comments to the Board of Works on December 26, 2018.

Warren grills her good and hard, just like Sam Waterston on that television show.

The Green Mouse ruminates.

Now the question is, did this come up because City Hall thinks they didn’t get enough hospital money? Interestingly enough, the paperwork for the FOIA request was filed by Hagen Gibson the day after Mark Seabrook held his fundraiser/mayoral announcement at Covered Bridge -- and one thing Seabrook mentioned at the fundraiser was his hope of putting the parks system back together.

NA Confidential says: Let's compromise!

Howzabout every governmental entity shows us the financials pertaining to projects like Hammersmith Park and River Run Family Gahan Dome, without making their release tantamount to raiding the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh?

Isn't 100% transparency the best for everyone ... even outside the immediate family?

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Of pedants, pedantry, and a compulsion to explain.

Way back on May 4, 2016, just a few months after the new "word column" debuted at NA Confidential, a chance arose to explain the column's inspiration.

Since it's been a year since I last pointed to this reference, let's go there again -- noting that Stan Robison has long since departed his position as second-ranking city attorney.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Apparatchik, or nomenklatura?

Can you explain why these are Shane's excellent new words, not Bob's or Larry's?

The idea for this column dates to a brief social media exchange between the senior editor and Shane Gibson, the city of New Albany's "corporate" attorney, as opposed to "garden variety" or "proletarian" attorney (Stan Robison).

In a revealing moment of pique, Gibson offered that NA Confidential is prone to using big words solely from a desire to be "smarter than everyone else."

Of course, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck ... but we digress.

To be sure, New Albany cultural dissidents often joke that the only city ordinance enforced with any degree of consistency is the one prohibiting the public use of words containing more than four syllables, and at least now we know who wrote it.

The specific word provoking the attorney's unsocial media ire was nomenklatura, as borrowed from Soviet-era Russia ...

In short, an attorney was accusing me of pedantry, which is a pleasing giggle in itself. Pedantry is defined as the habit or instance of being a pedant.

pedant
[ped-nt]
noun

• a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.
• a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.
• a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.

Earlier in the week I noticed the use of pedantic (of or like a pedant) in a comment on Facebook, and it got me thinking about whether I've been guilty of pedantry in the past.

On occasion, yes. In the larger sense, I don't think so.

In itself, an expanded vocabulary is no indicator of the pedantic allergen; it means only that one knows many words, and tries to use them when and where they're appropriate. The English language is rich in words, after all.

It remains that the things I know, I try to explain.

Admittedly it can be a compulsion, but as I prepare to dip a toe ever so gingerly into teaching "beer class" again for the first time in six years, I recall that rigorous attention to detail never has been a strong suit of mine.

Rather, I prefer telling the sort of stories and using the type of examples that stick with the listener, in the hope of them retaining what I consider to be useful knowledge -- whether about beer, baseball or bunker design.

Why do pedants pedant? I don't know, but my own style is very much in the vernacular tradition, and that's all right by me.

Why do pedants pedant?, by David Steele (The Guardian)

Some people just love pointing out mistakes and errors made by others. Why? What do they get from it?

So, why do pedants pedant? We don’t really know, but some tangential studies infer it’s to do with a mixture of personality, status-signalling and group identification. As with all things, more (good) research is needed.

62,572 annual reasons (and 26 cents) why "a great experience is priceless" is the worst answer for any city employee to give.

Back to one-way.

Shades of "no cost is too great" to rehabilitate the Reisz building. At least David Barksdale's not a mayoral family member, though that's small consolation in terms of squandered opportunity cost.

In New Albany, nepotism is a family tradition.

The Bicentennial Park Summer Re-Elect Jeff Gahan Concert Series begins anew on Friday, August 3. It's the sixth season of these events, followed by a year of rotating "Live @ Five" shows. How much has all this cost the city?

We still have no idea. Here's an article from August 30, 2015.

August 3 is my birthday. let's hope I'm at Pints & Union.

---

Why "a great experience is priceless" is the worst answer for any city employee to give.

What does it cost the city to stage Friday evening concerts at a venue that wasn't built to host them?

Surely somewhere these raw numbers exist: Production Simple does the booking and staging, city workers block the street, prepare the grounds and clean up, police officers act as security, and of course, there are sponsorships, and these defray at least some of the costs, right?

Shouldn't this information be part of the public record?

I asked.

The quick response came not from Shane Gibson, but Chris Gardner: "A great experience is priceless."

Think about that.

Chris Gardner is the city of New Albany's director of flood control. He has a degree in business management (IU Southeast; 2010), used to work at a veneer plant, and is married to the mayor's daughter. These facts are matters of public record, and if subject to review by the most disinterested of space aliens armed with theories of impartiality and a recent dictionary, there'd almost inevitably arise at least some reference to the concept of nepotism.

Perhaps Jeff Gahan's exaggerated fluke of a vote total in 2011 blinded him to the implications of the word "nepotism", or maybe he didn't know what it meant in the first place. I doubt he cares, but even if the director of flood control weren't an otherwise unqualified son-in-law, and even if he were just another unqualified city political patronage employee, can this or any other mayor countenance a taxpayer inquiry being greeted with this?

"A great experience is priceless."

Perhaps Gardner's sequestration down by the river, where few people actually live, has caused Gardner to overlook the plain fact that lots of folks living hereabouts are not enjoying a great experience, because the reality of income inequality is that they cannot afford a frat boy's nonchalance, either in terms of attitude or disposable income. 

What's more, not many of them are in a position to enjoy the bread, circuses and musical events being staged for their benefit. They're working multiple jobs, juggling parental duties and just scraping through. They're struggling with finding and keeping affordable housing. Whether we care to admit it or not, most of us are far closer to poverty than we'll ever be to the lofty ease of the 1%, and we'd be advised to remember how quickly any of us could fall through the patchwork safety net, which Republicans keep trying to dismantle. 

Shouldn't Democrats be more concerned with maintaining a functional, level playing field than pretending to be Walt Disney?

Seriously, how many of us shrug and spend money without looking at the price?

Let's say I come home with a brand new car, run inside the house, get Diana and say, "Look at the nice shiny thing I bought for you."

Is anyone outside of the 1% NOT going to ask me how much it cost, to demand an explanation, to point out that we already owe far more than we make, and can we really afford it?

New Albanians should do the same. Experiences may indeed be priceless, but creditors are notoriously inconvenient when it comes to seeing the transaction in a different light. When Jeff Gahan's minions brag to you about their nice shiny objects, don't forget to ask them how much they cost ... and how do we pay for them ... and how many years will we be paying?

You'd ask these same questions when making your household purchases, wouldn't you?

Some day those objects won't be quite as shiny -- and your grandchildren will still be paying for them. That's neither great nor priceless, is it?

Absentee imperial mayor? City council should delay the Reisz Elephant vote until Deaf Gahan deigns to appear and answer questions. Isn't that why he's here?

Consider it foreshadowing (August 10, 2017):

Reisz Vote Buy Bonanza: "The News and Tribune asked to interview Mayor Jeff Gahan and was instead referred to statements in a news release."

Monday's council vote on the Municipal Government Self-Stimulation Act of 2018, aka Uncage the Reisz Elephant, will no doubt place take place with either Mike Hall or new hire Josh Staten on hand to "communicate" from the mayor.

It will be the latest in a long series of absolutely critical, time-sensitive-or-the-deluge council ballots at which Jeff Gahan has remained sequestered in the command bunker with the campaign finance abacus, a case of Bud Light Tangerine and the Netflix play list.

Of course, there's good reason why the forever agoraphobic Gahan's team of bootlicking sycophants must keep him safely secured against questions, and it's because the moment any public interaction strays from the script (read: eludes the control of handlers), the mayor's inability to improvise, or to connect with genuine human beings (as opposed to inanimate objects) is blatantly exposed.

When this happens, the harder Gahan tries, the worse it gets -- and the angrier he becomes.

In this now legendary video from city hall's rigged January meeting about the "Mayor Jeff M. Gahan Presents the Mt. Tabor Campaign Finance and Roadway Expansion Project," the mayor's petulance escalates with each of his dully repetitive refrains of "that's why we're here," until he's aggressively demanding to know why citizens aren't listening to him, even as he insists that this Potemkin facade of a meeting was staged to prove he's listening to them.

It's required viewing for every voter in 2019, and would be a comedy classic if not for the gravity of Gahan's serial ineptitude.

Will we catch a glimpse of the Great White Hope amid Monday's final vote on the Reisz Elephant? In my view, council should delay the vote until Gahan materializes to answer questions.

Meanwhile, last evening's guest column is worth a hard look.

Councilman David Barksdale's role in the Reisz Affair deserves closer scrutiny -- and his fellow historic preservationists should be the ones most worried. They've tied themselves to one mayor and his squalid motives, and thrown all their eggs into one basket.

Reisz's ripple effects will be much less in terms of economic development than proponents claim, and far more extensive as they pertain to compromising historic preservationists' credibility.

GUEST COLUMN: David Barksdale must recuse himself from the Reisz city hall vote.

As for the municipal corporate attorney's scowling and defensive (35 Questions) performance before council on June 21st -- these being the questions Gahan should be answering -- let's turn it over to the newspaper.

NEW ALBANY: Debate rages on over Reisz building, by Chris Morris (A Tom May Joint)

NEW ALBANY — For more than one hour New Albany City Attorney Shane Gibson stood before the city council Thursday night and answered 35 questions submitted to him about the proposed move of city hall to the vacant Reisz Furniture building. Many of the questions had been asked before, and many focused on the yearly payment and the added space the city would be acquiring.

Thursday was just a preview of what's to come.

The council plans to take a final vote on whether to move city offices to the Reisz building, which would be developed by Denton Floyd Real Estate Group, on July 2. Gibson will be back to answer more questions then prior to the vote, and provide additional input. The ordinance to use Economic Development Income Tax money for the project passed its first two readings last month by a 5-4 vote.

TONIGHT'S MEETING REMINDER: "Town hall to discuss possible Reisz purchase."

Don't forget tonight's meeting about the Reisz Elephant.

Stop the Reisz Elephant: There'll be a public meeting on Wednesday, June 27, downstairs at the library, at 6:00 p.m.

The newspaper recaps the story and previews the meeting.

Town hall to discuss possible Reisz purchase, by Chris Morris (Tom May Press)

NEW ALBANY — Dan Coffey said a lot of people are upset about the proposed purchase of the old Reisz furniture building for the new city hall, and he hopes many of them come to his town hall meeting tonight to share their feelings.

The meeting, at 6 p.m. at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library, is intended to "get the facts out," about the cost of the building, according to Coffey. He said there are questions that have not been answered by the city's administration.

"The bottom line is they have not been forthcoming with the answers," Coffey, first district city councilman, said. "The process has been flawed and the real information has not been given to the public."

Readers, I've been doing my best to cover this issue, and the simplest way to look at it is that historic preservation is the very last consideration. It's actually a red herring. The Reisz Elephant is about Jeff Gahan's power and his political aims, as lubricated by lots and lots of money.

Look past the stated aims, and see the corrupt underbelly of the current occupant.

---

Previously:

Reisz Elephant: Lawyer Gibson hails redevelopment's back-room RFP fix as an excellent way to do business with just one company.

Jeff Gahan handed Denton Floyd $750,000 to kick-start the Reisz project. Where are the documents detailing this transaction?

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

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

Jeff Gahan's attacks on county government stand an excellent chance of hurting the business climate in New Albany.

ON THE AVENUES: Government Lives Matter, so it's $10,000,000 for Gahan's luxury city hall clique enhancement. Happy dumpster diving, peasants!

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Latest Reisz City Hall cost estimate reaches $9,250,000 -- and the tote board keeps spinning.

Truth is stranger than fact: Back in 2012, the Reisz building was to become a senior living complex. Bob Caesar kneecapped it -- and Deaf Gahan DISAGREED with Cee-Saw.

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.

Jeff Gahan handed Denton Floyd $750,000 to kick-start the Reisz project. Where are the documents detailing this transaction?

At last Thursday’s city council meeting, municipal corporate attorney Shane Gibson finally stated publicly what we’d assumed all along about the variety of options to "save" the Reisz Furniture Store.

According to Gibson, there are only two options. It’s Jeff Gahan’s way, or the landfill.

Gahan’s $10,000,000 project to renovate the horribly “neglected, dilapidated and blighted” building and create a luxury city hall commensurate with the mayor’s grandiose self-image is intended as an either/or proposition.

Gibson told councilmen that if the city’s back-alley deal with Denton Floyd falls through, there are no other choices aside from demolition. Either the city spends a minimum of $10,000,000, or there’ll be a hole in the ground.

Anyone listening to Gibson should have asked a simple question.

How so?

Last August, the Redevelopment Commission approved a payment of $750,000 to Denton Floyd, from which roughly $400,000 was intended from the very start to be used by the contractor to buy the building from Schmitt Furniture.

According the Elevate website, this purchase occurred in September, a month after the meeting, which strongly implies the real estate transaction was complete save for the cash.

Thus, Schmitt Furniture was indemnified for neglect, dilapidation and blight, and Denton Floyd owned the building, awaiting final council approval of the back room deal.

Returning to Gibson's ultimatum, how can the city demolish a building owned by someone else, in this case a firm with which Gahan and cohorts are closerthanthis? Certainly there are ways, but the larger point is the disposition of the money we’ve already spent.

The city might well condemn the building and demolish it – and if so, the city’s out $750,000.

Or, Denton Floyd might ask to demolish it, and city still is out $750,000, but Denton Floyd used the city's money, anyway, leaving it free to return to being behind schedule and over budget on the M Fine seniors housing conversion just up Main Street.

As an aside, Denton Floyd undertakes few large-scale projects without voluminous government assurances, whether here or in Jeffersonville. But that’s for another time.

Back to Gibson’s question time before council, which by all rights should have been Gibson’s and Gahan’s joint appearance. The corporate attorney blithely assured onlookers that if the mayor isn’t handed his palace forthwith, the building’s a goner.

Where does it say all this?

The Redevelopment Commission voted unanimously last August in favor of resolution (RC-06-17), enabling the $750,000 windfall payment to Denton Floyd, as well as smaller payments toward the Louis Hartman House on State Street (future home of Indiana Landmarks; no self-interest THERE) and the Knights of Columbus.

Commission stalwart and Democratic Party chairman Adam Dickey's minutes detail the discussion.

The meeting minutes make no mention of the dollar amounts involved, but then-reporter Elizabeth Beilman of the News and Tribune included them in her coverage of the meeting.

The overarching point is that while details aren't always discussed aloud, they're included in the text of the resolution, accompanying legal documents, or both.

You know, like a contract.

And: Throughout city council’s discussion of the Reisz project, from May 2018 to the present, including the 35 or 36 questions for Gibson to answer or artfully evade last Thursday, the actual text of the resolution and the content of accompanying legal documents have not been seen … by anyone, on council or off, although presumably the council’s two redevelopment representative at the time, David Barksdale and Bob Caesar (the latter since replaced) viewed the terms.

These details are kinda important, aren’t they? 

Would any self-respecting attorney merely hand a $750,000 check to a contractor without specific language about the terms of the transaction taking place? There'd be signatures, right?

And wouldn't there be detailed explanations of contingencies, the simplest being things like insurance coverage and time frames?

Or are we to believe that former (seriously?) redevelopment chieftain David Duggins brought a briefcase filled with C-notes to the limousine for Denton Floyd's public-officials-only Keeneland junket (with paid models) last September?

Isn't it impossible to believe that the Redevelopment Commission resolution and/or legal agreements between the city and Denton Floyd explaining the $750,000 payment AREN’T accompanied by more than a post-it note reading “if it doesn’t happen, just keep the money and tear down that motherfucka”?

Furthermore, if the resolution and/or legal documents discuss other possibilities and contingencies beyond demolition for the Reisz, then the entire truth wasn’t being told last Thursday night ... and if Barksdale and Caesar knew otherwise as they sat listening, doesn't their silence speaks volumes?

Until this information is made public, how can city council proceed with a vote next Monday?

Here's the text of my e-mail this morning to Barksdale and redevelopment director Josh Staten. Don't forget Wednesday's meeting at the library:

Stop the Reisz Elephant: There'll be a public meeting on Wednesday, June 27, downstairs at the library, at 6:00 p.m.

---

Good morning,

The topic is RC-06-17, the Redevelopment Commission's ordinance of 08/08/2017, described in the meeting's minutes as being titled "Resolution Promoting Historic Preservation, Economic Development, and Blight Removal.

The meeting minutes for 08/08/2017, which are available on-line, include a detailed discussion of this resolution, but the minutes neither make mention of funding amounts, nor include the text of the resolution itself.

However, in Elizabeth Beilman's coverage of the meeting for the News and Tribune, she quotes a figure of "$826,000 in total funding commitments for the Reisz Furniture building, the Louis Hartman House on State Street and the Knights of Columbus," of which $750,000 for the Reisz project is specified.

Consequently, in terms of public information, we know the nature of the discussion about the resolution. We also know the dollar amounts, courtesy of the newspaper reporter. But we have not seen the text of resolution RC-06-17, and for this reason I'm writing to you today to request a copy of the resolution.

I'm happy to visit the office to pick this up, or you can e-mail it to this address. I trust this will be promptly rendered.

Thank you

R

---

Previously:

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

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

Jeff Gahan's attacks on county government stand an excellent chance of hurting the business climate in New Albany.

ON THE AVENUES: Government Lives Matter, so it's $10,000,000 for Gahan's luxury city hall clique enhancement. Happy dumpster diving, peasants!

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Latest Reisz City Hall cost estimate reaches $9,250,000 -- and the tote board keeps spinning.

Truth is stranger than fact: Back in 2012, the Reisz building was to become a senior living complex. Bob Caesar kneecapped it -- and Deaf Gahan DISAGREED with Cee-Saw.

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.

Gibson points to Duggins' letter as proof that Coffey had the OK for his harvest cash-coming car park. In other news, City Hall ethics are in critical condition.

Previously we were trying to determine whether anyone in a position of authority had given Dan Coffey explicit permission to use city property to park cars during Harvest Homecoming.

In a dramatic semi-literate letter to city council, former redevelopment bag man (David) Duggins accepts responsibility for Coffey's harvest cash-coming car park cronyism caper.

Prior to Duggins' conveniently timed revisionist history lesson, we'd asked interim redevelopment commission director and city attorney Shane Gibson, as well as the body's secretary Adam Dickey, whether any commission records exist testifying to official recognition of Coffey's antics.

Today the response came back.

---

Mr. Baylor:

In response to your email request dated November 29, 2017, please find attached the only document in the possession of the Commission/City regarding that matter.

Shane L. Gibson
Corporate Counsel
City of New Albany
311 Hauss Square, Rm. 316
New Albany, IN 47150
812-948-5333

---

Naturally, this document is Duggins' very same letter, as almost certainly commissioned by Gibson himself and brandished like a mutton javelin by Coffey at Monday's council meeting.

Pending coherent thoughts from Mayor Jeff Gahan, it seems that our inquiry is halted. Duggins said it was okay; he does as he pleases, conflict of interests be damned, and that's that.

Coffey's piling up the pork barrel winnings for the Knights of Columbus, who at a future time probably will regret the decision to allow a copperhead snake to be the face of the organization -- though not just yet.

City council has not ever censured Coffey, who in the past physically threatened a citizen and openly spouted anti-gay slurs. Of course, Duggins is Jeff Gahan's golden boy, one who could openly urinate on the city's Christmas tree and be promoted with a pay rise for his bladder relief.

In New Albany, in spite of the PR ballyhoo at their inception, neither human rights nor ethics commissions exist in any tangible, real-world way, and yet what we're witnessing here is the precise rationale for some semblance of the citizenry's recourse to ethical lapses. 

As it stands, Coffey wins yet again ... and the city loses.

Yet again ... and 2019 just can't come soon enough.