Wheel of Sodden at the Saturation Army -- or another heavy rain, another plan to alleviate self-inflicted stormwater tsunamis.

Extra, extra -- read all about it.



The best cure of all would have been pre-emptive; no clearcutting, no Summit Springs. But in American capitalism, and in the way American governance attaches itself like a leech to American capitalism, as opposed to American people ... a few inches of water every time it rains is a small price to pay for someone else's profits.

Project to help alleviate stormwater flooding issues in New Albany, by Chris Morris (Tom May Anthology)

NEW ALBANY — Southern Indiana has been inundated with rain this year, and New Albany has not escaped Mother Nature's wrath.

On Monday, the city picked up three additional inches, but according to Chris Gardner, stormwater director, there were no major problems and no roads had to be closed due to high water or flash flooding.

"We had minimal issues," Gardner told the New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety on Tuesday. "We were fortunate we didn't have any major issues. I think a lot of that can be attributed to the improvements we have made in the last eight years."

Another improvement — the State Street/Green Valley Road Detention Project — coming in the next few months should help stormwater runoff in the State Street area and nearby on nearby Martin Drive.

Work to install a pipe under State Street, near the south end of Wesley Commons, will begin Monday. The pipe will eventually replace a 107-acre watershed in the area and will redirect water into a detention basin that will be constructed in the rear of the Salvation Army on Green Valley Road. Work is expected to be completed this year. An exact schedule and more details of the project are expected to be released soon, Gardner said.

"Swaps" to support local businesses -- because, DEATH TO CHAINS.

In terms of size, there are no useful analogies between the nation's capital and New Albany. We're obviously far smaller, but I like the spirit of this piece, which is transferable to our town in one specific instance.

Chain Reaction: Make These Five Swaps to Support Local Businesses, by Laura Hayes (Washington City Paper)

Next time you’re standing in front of a chain eatery that serves the cuisine you’re craving, consider walking a few blocks farther to find the locally owned version. It may be more important than ever to open your wallet at small, District-born businesses ...

An example of the formatting:

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (3200 Bladensburg Road NE) ---> Mason Dixie Biscuit Company (2301 Bladensburg Road NE)

Walk or drive 0.9 miles.

Popeyes has history on its side. The chain was born 45 years ago in New Orleans and now has 2,600 restaurants in the U.S. and around the world. But local fried chicken and biscuit slinger Mason Dixie Biscuit Company has some accolades of its own, including winning “Best Biscuit in America, Critic’s Choice” at the 2015 International Biscuit Festival. Its classic fried chicken thigh sandwich is made from hormone-free chicken.

The specific instance I have in mind is downtown's proximity to the clustermuck of State Street chains -- with more on the way courtesy of Jeff Gahan's tacky Summit Springs corporate advancement development.

To be sure, there are a few legitimate indies along the State Street corridor, including Tucker's, Bridge Liquors and Green Tea Chinese.

But note that the distance between Bob Evans on State and Toast on Market is exactly two miles, and between Home Depot and PC Home Center even less.

Our experience in New Albany with independent business advocacy has not been favorable. I'd suggest very strongly that business owners may wish to reconsider the merits of unity in this regard, especially with the next Sherman Minton Bridge closing less than four years away.

This time we know when the bridge is to be closed, and can prepare an advancement of "togetherness" indie consciousness in advance -- or, conversely, flail valiantly all alone.

It's our choice.

Update: The Bored meets, except for me and my monkey. Can someone loan me a code talker?

Earlier this morning, I asked a question.

ASK THE BORED: This week they're being more secretive than usual. Wonder why?

The BOW agenda e-mails were indeed sent as always, and as I'd guessed, there was something screwy, namely a technical glitch with my work account, this no doubt being some sort of cyber-sabotage on the part of my soon-to-be-ex-business-partners, or more likely, the fact that NABC's e-mail has always been weird and spotty.

File under: You Get What You (Seldom) Pay For.

It was good for some over-wrought drama, and lightened a dreary morning. Meanwhile, I've provided a new e-address to Ms. Milburn and she forwarded the BOW agenda (so did the redoubtable I Am Hoosier). Items 2 and 3 in this list are of potential interest.

Do city officials ever really communicate? Still, if he's able to extricate himself from an ever-lengthening nose, Rosenbarger will explain new and modernized traffic signals on State from Main to I-265.

A casual observer might find circumstantial two-way evidence in the signal project, as coupled with the city engineer's morning spiel on environmental documents and plans for a downtown grid project yet to be approved, but Trump will be president, and what the hell do I know?

Having consulted my BS Tolerance blood levels and found them sorely challenged, I decided not to attend the meeting. Rather than wading through a chorus of nods, winks and blithely misdirected blind horses to mine clues as to what the Bored will do next, staying home and reading tea leaves by the fire seemed to offer a more fruitful outcome.

By the way, has Adam fired himself yet?

Summit Sprigs, or the best stormwater slides TIF-ication can buy.

Mother Nature does it all for us.

By clear-cutting in March and waiting a few short months, we can see exactly where to put the water slides (in rainy season) and toboggan runs (in winter).

It's only one part of the inspiring, scenic State Street scene.

The Scott Blair Memorial Hardee's.

Got (Scott) Wood?

It's a shopping cart/Gahan public art.

At Summit Springs work session tonight, council will get an itsy bitsy glimpse into City Hall's smoke-filled secret planning chamber.

6:30 p.m., tonight, council chamber. Regular meeting at 7. Soothing gin available at The Exchange, pre-game.

Just plain citizen Aaron Hellems continues to perform a valuable public service by attempting to make transparent the backroom dealings that led to this project's surprise re-appearance, which for most people became evident only when the hillside was denuded of trees earlier this spring.

Shortly thereafter, City Hall triumphantly announced its participation in yet another private developer enrichment project, Summit Springs (NOW WITH HOTEL!!!), and therein lies the biggest question of all, at least for me.

We, the city, spent in excess of two years -- more like three -- battling these developers in court over issues pertaining to our ability as a municipal entity to establish rules about developments like Summit Springs.

We, the city, moved the court case to Scott County, far from prying eyes. The court case was settled (circumstances as yet unknown -- that transparency thing again) circa October of 2015, and mere months later, down came the trees, and up went the plaque proclaiming we, the city's tremendous achievement in public/private partnering with the developers to snarl State Street traffic for generations to come -- not to mention stormwater system overloads and a host of other questions not subject to public review or participation.

Here's what inquiring minds want to know:

Given the time it  takes to engrave plaques and overhaul multi-million dollar project plans, was one arm of City Hall fighting Summit Springs even as another arm was fluffing it?

The answer should be obvious. Waiting for Jeff Gahan to answer this question honestly? Don't, because he cannot and will not. He won't come to tonight's meeting. However, at the ribbon cutting, he'll be standing center stage, fundraising for That State Senate Campaign in 2018.

Summit Springs work session coming soon, by Jerod Clapp (Utica Solidarity Gazette)

NEW ALBANY — Getting some answers on the process and what's coming forward for the Summit Springs development off State Street is the aim of a city council work session Monday night.

Since the clear cutting of trees behind home on Fawcett Hill Road, which backs up to the proposed development, Aaron Hellems has raised his issues with the city in terms of why those trees were cut down, how it was pushed through by a single city official and looking for assurances that the city will honor laws regarding PUDDs in the future.

He spoke at the last city council meeting on May 19 about the issues. However, he said he's not heard from anyone involved in the development since.

"Unfortunately, nobody from the city has reached out to discuss this," Hellems said. "Likewise, the developers haven't tried to contact us, either. [The city council] said when you come back, you need to know what you want. It's not so much about me as it is the neighborhood."

He said part of the issue is how the clear cutting was approved. He said those sorts of decisions require second approval by local governing agencies under the law, but that didn't happen with those trees. Scott Wood, director of the city plan commission, made that decision in April. He said there was a deadline to meet to cut the trees down before Indiana Bats began roosting in them, which would have delayed the project for about another year.

The heroic Statue of Disdain, coming soon to a hillside near us.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

VIDEO: Summit Springs development and roadway proposals, Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission, Tuesday 12 April 2016.

FLASKBACK: What I wrote on the occasion of Summit Springs ... nine years ago.

City Hall approves heroic "Statue of Disdain" branding symbol for Summit Springs.

There is no crosswalk at Main and W. 1st Streets, and yet there's one in the middle of the block by the hospital (2 of 2).

(1 of 2)

(2 of 2)

Traveling southbound on State Street. You see a yellow sign warning about the forthcoming crosswalk.

Then a flashing yellow light.

Finally, the crosswalk itself.

However, we've been told that nothing comparable can be done here ...

 ... presumably because the state still controls this stretch of road, and the city's hands are tied. But why are caution lights sufficient at one heavily-trafficked stretch, and not another?

At times like this, you find yourself thinking. Ignoring for a moment whether the city might have resolved to act aggressively in favor of safety for all users, and pushed the state harder prior to last year's "get it paved by election time" project on W. Main Street, it remains that we possess the ability to lobby INDOT for better terms.

His name is Ed Clere, and he's our state representative. He'd likely be able to help. He's done so before, as during the negotiations between state and city for the relinquishment of 111.

Consequently, here's my next question: Has anyone from City Hall bothered to ask Ed Clere for help?

I think the answer is painfully obvious.

FLASKBACK: What I wrote on the occasion of Summit Springs ... nine years ago.

From council coverage on February 5, 2007 ... a little over 9 years ago, when the first iteration of the Summit Springs property development bubbled to the surface. Are we making "progress' yet?

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The more rope he is provided, the bigger Larry’s slippery noose grows.

Z-07-01
Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances New Albany, Indiana, Title XV, Chapter 156 (Docket P-12-06: Pat & Pam Kelly – Summit Springs Development)
Crump 1

Discussion of this, the latest in a series of divisive green field development projects, is my not-so-dark-horse choice to prompt a shouting match, either between citizens, council members, or both.

In essence, local zoning authorities use existing sets of criteria to rate such projects, which pass to the council for final approval, and are considered by the council using entirely different sets of criteria (read: political and electoral). The predictable result is a wide divergence of philosophical intent, and a striking absence of contextual continuity from one debate to the next.

With open space at an ever-increasing premium within the city limits of New Albany, but numerous adjacent tracts available for redevelopment and the type of adaptive reuse that we advocate here on a weekly basis, it continues to be frustrating that the square-pegged development logic of the “limitless” exurb so often is forcibly jammed into what are urban holes of decidedly different shape and ideal usage.

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem is the community’s inability – perhaps its unwillingness – to unify for the pursuit and maintenance of common development goals. To reframe our zoning standards according to a futuristic perspective, and to step up enforcement of standards already determined, is to set goals that are consistent with a principled recognition of changing circumstances, and to plan how these bars can be cleared for overall betterment.

As with so many other issues, I’m entirely unsure how we get past the enmity of generations and eliminate the personal animus that tends to improperly provide the backdrop to most of the council’s zoning decisions. It is clear that a working compromise between certain development mentalities structured to transform corn fields into asphalt, and those addressing the city’s pressing need to meet the demands of a far different – not better, not worse, just different – target market for an urban experience downtown, must be achieved … and soon.

Like so many previous proposals that have come before the council for consideration, it is likely that the Summit Springs project will be subject to the spasmodic paradigms of the body’s ward-heeling faction, and that it will be approved or rejected in the lamentable absence of a genuine community debate over developmental standards. Where the coin will drop is anyone’s guess, as it always is with this group.

VIDEO: Summit Springs development and roadway proposals, Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission, Tuesday 12 April 2016.

The topic is Summit Springs, a huge hilltop property development off State Street, which apparently began forward motion (probably downhill) only after the resolution of a two-year-long lawsuit undertaken by the property owners against the city, which was resolved last October.

As no one outside the down-low bunker knows what the resolution of the lawsuit stipulated, it's anyone's guess, although this snippet of the development's enabling city council ordinance way back in 2008 (Z-01-18, I believe) contains a very important nugget.

Needless to say, no such secondary review has occurred, but a hillside has been stripped clean and the city has agreed to TIF a cliff-clinging road. The rest, as was repeated so often today, is merely the detail of responsible, civic due diligence by the very same design and engineering suspects as always.

The royal houses of Europe learned these lessons the hard way. From the newspapers:

New details revealed in disputed N.A. project, by Lexy Gross (C-J)

Favorable vote moves New Albany hotel development forward; Board gives OK to road extension work, by Chris Morris (Clark Chronicle)

---

The following four videos are from the Redevelopment Commission meeting of Tuesday, April 12. I'm the first to admit that I'm new at iPhone videos, but since the most recent RC minutes are several months old, I thought something is better than nothing. I exhausted available storage space just as former councilman John Gonder brilliantly spoke, and also missed the unanimous commission vote in favor of the road.

Of course, no road, no project. Many approvals are ahead, and maybe the property owners will surprise us and actually follow the letter of the eight-year-old law.

Speakers in these videos include commission members and representatives of the development company hired by property owners Patrick and Pam Kelley. The last of these videos is Aaron Hellems, who spoke against the project. There'll be more to say about this, but for now ... it's something.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jeff Gahan's cloak-and-dagger Redevelopment Backscratching Commission will consider the future of Summit Springs, a bizarre hilltop commercial development off State Street that has been turned down more often than I was during prom season back in '77.

And yet following the late 2015 resolution of a lawsuit against the city, the controversial project has returned to life and is being warmly embraced by Team Gahan, which has resolved to TIF-Gift this for-profit private development monstrosity with an access road somehow tacked to the hillside, requiring a feat of engineering last witnessed when we spent $3 million on Bob Caesar's Silver Hills driveway.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

As noted yesterday, the Green Mouse has found a disgruntled informant close to the top. As information comes in, it will be published here.

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What can be done to stop this environmental disaster of Gahan-ic proportions?

Up on my floor, we call Summit Springs “Schisty Springs.” As for what can be done to stop it, it's the same old story. You have to register your viewpoint.

You can inundate city government with calls expressing your dissatisfaction with this planned development and the secretive means it has been thrust upon us. 

The main number for the city building is 812-948-5333. Ask to speak to the mayor’s office, the City Plan Commission, and Redevelopment. You are also strongly urged to contact your district city council person and each at-large member. If you are feeling particularly ornery and feisty, express your discontent and insist on satisfactory answers to your questions.

While you’re at it, email them as well so there’s a paper trail. 10, 15, or 20 calls in a day is enough to get anyone’s attention. This is not just about being a nuisance … it’s about holding our public officials accountable and making sure they follow the law.

However, good luck in trying to reach these city officials. Judging from the past, I fear they may already be in hiding trying to avoid the fallout of this latest debacle.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

On Tuesday, Jeff Gahan's handpicked Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission will consider the future of Summit Springs, a hilltop commercial development off State Street. The city's TIF Gift to this latest monstrosity is to be road tacked to the hillside.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

The Green Mouse has found a disgruntled informant close to the top. As information comes in, it will be published here.

---

Where did the trees go?

A developer has decided to place a hotel and other businesses on top of that steep hill, and apparently, the trees were in the way.

When did this get approved?

It didn’t. Well…kinda.

It’s a little confusing unless you are a Krafty lawyer. The property owners have been trying to develop that hill since 2003. Most recently, in 2012, the proposed plan failed to gain support from City Council. However, the night City Council was to vote on it, the property owners withdrew the plan.

A couple months later, the property owners returned with the intention of reviving a plan from 2008. This particular plan had received primary approval from the Plan Commission and approval from City Council in 2008. However, because the property owners did not obtain secondary approval from the Plan Commission within 18 months as stated in city ordinance, the 2008 plan was no longer valid.

Now, the property owners must have known this. Otherwise, why would they go through the trouble and cost of getting another plan approved?

Since the property owners couldn’t get the needed votes from the 2012 City Council, they needed to devise a scheme to bypass City Council … enter the 2008 plan. They took the 2008 plan before the Board of Zoning Appeals but the Board saw through the scheme despite being threatened with a lawsuit. The property owners held true to their promise and sued the City of New Albany and the Board of Zoning Appeals.

This is where the story becomes unclear.

The city’s attorney, Stan Robison, requested a change of venue which ultimately moved the proceedings to Scott County. The local reporter (Daniel Suddeath) who had been covering the proposed development left the News and Tribune. Any and all coverage of this news story was non-existent during this time until now, when the hill has been stripped bare and the property owners want to build a road.

Whatever happened in the courtroom was clearly in the property owners’ favor. So, when did this plan gain approval? In 2008, by the city’s then Plan Commission and City Council, with the assistance of a judge at some point in the last two years. All of this was done without the property owner ever filing and getting approval for a secondary plan that would provide the details of the proposed development, which breaks city ordinance. So, it was not approved using the process set forth by the city.

How wonderful it is to be above the law. I wonder what else has been done without proper approval ... wait, don't ask me to answer THAT one.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Team Gahan can't install a crosswalk at Main and W. 1st, and then there's this.

The fact that the area has already been timbered doesn't bode well for New Albany rubber-stamp Redevelopment Commission ...

... to give the project's TIF road a thumbs-down, because of course all of it would have been arranged in the back corridors long before the rest of us knew anything.

You know, like an iceberg.

When the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal is finished, do you think the Hague would let us borrow it for a few months? Trust me, it won't take long, and they can have it right back.

Hotel, development slated for State Street in New Albany; Redevelopment commission to consider request Tuesday, by Chris Morris (10 Reasons Why Clark County Rocks)

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany Redevelopment Commission will consider a request to construct a road in order for a new development, which would include a hotel, to be constructed on the land behind Burger King and next to Home Depot in the 2200 block of State Street.

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan said the hotel being planned for the area is a Fairfield Inn and Suites. There would be other new development near the hotel which would likely include a medical facility and restaurants. He said the land was already approved for a Planned Unit Development.

Trees were cleared from the land recently in order to meet the state's April 1 deadline, due to bat and bird nests.

The answer to persistent stormwater runoff issues? Clear-cutting, of course.

Because a "green" way is all about unimpeded vistas?

Rorschach test? Fb reader says, "It's an homage to the mayor's head."

Previously at NAC:

Down-low forestry: "Plant some trees to save a town from flooding? Not a bad idea."

Let's go Krogering?: Does CM Blair's fixation with a boarded-up Hardee's have to do with gas pumps and corporate welfare?

On Friday, I emitted a rant.

Council meeting recap 1: State's a trashy chain-ridden asphalt nightmare, and this sole derelict Hardee's must go!

There was this interesting comment ...

Did we overhear Kroger managers talking about the company's plans to move the Kroger gas station to the Hardee's site?

If so, shouldn't Kroger pay for the demolition and site remediation?

Even though the city sold a relatively new fire station for much less than the replacement cost to allow Kroger to expand?

This morning over coffee, it was time for some research, prompted by this timely report from another helpful friend who agreed to hit the Internet for me. Let's have a look at the properties involved ...

The Hardees lot is a separate parcel cut from the large State Street Plaza lot. Both are owned by "New Albany Plaza LLC" using Kevin Schreiber as their listed agent. Kevin Schreiber is part of "The Shopping Center Group" - see: http://theshoppingcentergroup.com/people/kevin-schreiber/

Kroger is now listed as the owner of the former fire house lot using their holding company used for retail land purchases:

"Kroger Limited Partnership 1, through its General Partner KRGP, Inc., doing business as Kroger."

The Principal Officers are as follows:

President/COO: David B. Dillon of 1050 East Rookwood Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45208

Sr. Vice President/Secretary: Paul W. Heldman of 1135 Edwards Road, Cincinnati, OH 45208

Vice President/Treasurer: Scott M. Henderson of 10548 Secretariat Drive, Union, KY 41091.

And a bit more:

The existing Kroger store lot is currently owned by an entity named "B B W T, Inc." - I can't find out any information about that group, and I don't know what the initials represent.

Interestingly, supposedly the Penn Station (former 1st National bank building) comes down, and the Long John Silvers/A & W combo becomes part of the Kroger footprint to the west. When the project was announced, the plans were shown to the front line people, who talked about it for a few days. Now, if you ask any of them about it, all they'll say is that it's in the hands of the higher ups.

Here's a late update from yet another friend:

The Kroger on State Street owns the building that now holds Long John Silver and A & W. The owner of that franchise is looking to build where the Hardees buildig is now. He tried to get it in the contract for Kroger to remove that building and build a new one, but did not. However, the first stage of the Kroger expansion is to tear down the Long John Silver building in order to expand the gas station. Hope this helps.

Thanks to the three of you. Bankers seldom bother containing their enthusiasm for down-low deals of this nature, so it makes me wonder: Just how many deals are going to be cut for Kroger?

As an aside:

Almost from the moment the Kroger store opened on Grant Line Road, just across University Woods Drive from my pizzeria and public house business, the rumors began: Eventually, Kroger would buy Elliott Phillips's parking area (bounded by University Woods and Plaza Drive) and build a gas station there.

It never happened, but the rumors have not ceased.

Phillips no longer owns the property in question. It was purchased a couple years ago by ... the Blairs, from whom NABC leases parking spaces.

Council meeting recap 1: State's a trashy chain-ridden asphalt nightmare, and this sole derelict Hardee's must go!

I went to last evening's city council meeting solely because the word on the street was that Scott Blair wanted to talk about demolishing eyesore commercial properties.

In the end, the discussion about these properties was mercifully brief, and the bulk of the evening was given over to discussing storm water issues, and how we're probably never going to do what we should to begin resolving them.

Twelve years of do-nothing 8-1, 8-1 and 7-1-1 Democratic council majorities have calloused my demeanor, but Blair is a nominal "independent," and I came close to being rendered speechless last night at the notion that in a place like this where there is no rental property registration, zero rental property inspection, zoning codes in desperate need of updating (Shane Gibson said so himself), storm water problems, one-way streets -- a lengthy, seemingly endless list for a passive, leashed council with precious little on its twice monthly agenda throughout the Gahan term -- all this, and the boarded-up Hardee's on State Street inspires an immediate need for action!

Yes, it's been sitting there for a long time. But have you ever stood in the middle of the New Albany Plaza parking lot, dodging speeding Kentuckians and their cigarette butts, and looked around?

It is a depressing, soul-crushing, exurban tableau of chain stores, rutted asphalt, clamorous traffic, trash and auto-centric ugliness. There's almost nothing human about it. We slayed the fascist dragon in WWII for this?

Again: We live in what amounts to a city-wide slumlord empowerment zone, and the city council has not done anything about it -- EVER.

EVER.

And the banker's offended by an empty fast-food building surrounded by acres of impermeable surfaces that -- wait for it -- bear prime responsibility for the drainage problems the council members all want to look concerned about because, yes, THIS IS AN ELECTION YEAR.

Rant over.

As you were ... as we ARE, which may be the ultimate problem.