Politicians paint murals, but protesters make genuine change and real history.

Give 'em time, and we'll have statues of automobiles. I volunteer to be first in line when it comes to bringing those symbols down.

Go Ahead and Destroy That Racist Statue (and Then the System Too), by Jillian Steinhauer (The Nation)

While politicians are painting murals in lieu of undertaking real change, protesters are making history by pulling down symbols of white supremacy.

On June 9, after a week and a half of large, daily Black Lives Matter protests in New York City that began as part of a national uprising in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was taking action: He would name a street in each of the five boroughs after Black Lives Matter and paint the name of the movement on those roads. The decision came days after Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser received widespread attention for turning a section of 16th Street NW across from the White House into Black Lives Matter Plaza, with the phrase painted in 50-foot yellow letters on the pavement. Meanwhile, a short way down the National Mall, Democratic members of Congress, most of them white, showed up at the Capitol on June 8 wearing kente stoles. They knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds—the same amount of time that Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck—before entering their chambers to introduce the Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

Politicians around the country are performing. They’re trying to show their constituents that they’re working on the problem of white supremacy in ways big and small. They’re using gestures to attempt to broadcast a message—but one that is ultimately hollow. As Shannon Keating put it recently in BuzzFeed News, it amounts to “performative absurdity from powerful people who’ve long avoided real accountability for causing or excusing Black suffering” ...

It's godawful and tacky BUT let's look at the bright side, because it might be FAR worse.

I knew it was too good to be true.

Say what? Look, it's a pandemic parking garage painting innovation.

How many of these "branding" mechanisms do we need before the whole world understands New Albany is "anchored" to the floodplain?

Then again, it could be much worse, and Gahan might have emulated Il Duce -- again.

yes yes yes

NO NO NO

A yawning GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 24 April.

New Albany remains in administrative double-secret COVID lockdown limbo as we conclude the sixth week of incrementally accrued Gahanesque imperial powers.

As The Economist pointed out yesterday, "Rulers everywhere have realised that now is the perfect time to do outrageous things, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world will barely notice. Many are taking advantage of the pandemic to grab more power for themselves."

Rather than a city council meeting this or any other week, the body's button-down president Bob "CeeSaw" Caesar instead addressed the city's budget situation with a sing-along dial-up webcast from his backyard shed via a carrier pigeon named Zoom.

That's about all for news, folks. A quick recap, beginning with something genuinely amazing. After a quarter-century of nothingness, the city's downtown parking garage is receiving splashes of ... yes ... COLOR.

Say what? Look, it's a pandemic parking garage painting innovation.

The newspaper is diminishing, and the publisher is in denial.

The newspaper shrinks -- but let's leave psychiatrists out of it, okay Bill?

Hanson's not the only one. For the moment, my world's already gone -- and I won't kid you, it's been hard.

My homes away from home are gone, so the SOCIALIST is having BEERS WITH himself.

The relief effort continues at Pints&union, and if you're able, please consider a donation. Joe Phillips and our coordinator Jamie Yeager are doing the work of a half-dozen persons.

The LEE Initiative Restaurant Workers Relief Program at Pints&union, and how you can help by donating.

Say what? Look, it's a pandemic parking garage painting innovation.

I still like my idea better (December 4, 2016).

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My State Street Parking Garage public art dream.

Even better: Hang a Trabi right in the center.

Zoo TV Tour

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But what happened to "wrapping" the parking garage with apartments and other luxury amenities -- or did Cornerstone merely tithe the mayor's re-election slush fund and move on to a different town?

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March 19, 2017

Lucky ol' Cornerstone Engineering: Redevelopment awards $17,500 contract to explore the possibility of "wrapping the parking garage and adding apartments and businesses to the structure."

Here's one out the blue.

Redevelopment Commission secretary Adam "Where the Fix Is Always In" Dickey records Irving Joshua's strange musings on the possibility of the State Street parking garage's adaptive reuse (from the meeting of February 14).

Wouldn't you love it if Cornerstone came back with a recommendation to convert the parking garage into a farmers market?

Develop New Albany's on-line farmers market "poll" is a reeking, juvenile cesspool of intellectual dishonesty. (March 8, 2014)

Why is DNA opposed to having an intelligent community discussion about the farmers market and its place in a revitalizing downtown without resorting to the misconceptions and scaremongering?

Moreover, if we're paying engineering consultants to explore different uses for the parking garage, does it mean we don't have a parking problem, after all?

We need to hurry with the public art solution before Dogs Playing Poker wins -- again.

Behind closed doors: Redevelopment is talking about parking downtown, but we can't hear them.

Indeed.

No one knows what goes on behind closed doors, but to infer from the following excerpts, it has to do with a "solution" to a parking problem that doesn't exist.

I can hardly wait to be served notice that a "solution" without any significant public input has suddenly become breathlessly urgent, and must be implemented immediately.

January 9

February 13

April 10

May 9

Grid Control, Vol. 29: Market Street now is two-way the entire way, though it complicates parking garage access.

For reasons unknown, the reversion of Market Street to two-way traffic (specifically, between State Street and W. 5th) was not part of the federal 80-20 funding mechanism of the grid modernization and (and campaign monetization) project.

Downtown 2-way Conversion Update - Market Fully 2-way on Oct 31

The final stretch of Market Street set to be converted to 2-way traffic (from State Street to West 5th Street) will convert on October 31st. The intersection at Scribner and Market Street will temporarily be a 4-way stop while crews work to convert the signal. After this conversion is complete, all of Market Street will hold 2-way traffic.

It has happened. Interestingly, the reversion has a side effect in the sense of restricting access to the parking garage for traffic traveling eastbound on Market -- including those drivers eastbound on I-64 who exit into New Albany and approach downtown from the west.

The median precludes a left turn into the Market Street garage entrance; while a left turn into the parking garage from State (northbound) remains theoretically possible, it involves crossing two lanes of traffic where southbound cars are stacked headed south at the light.

Of course, drivers eastbound on Market can circle the block via Pearl and Spring to get back to State southbound, and easy garage access; ironically, ending the necessity of making such loops was a prime reason for the reversion to two-way traffic.

In my opinion, both medians between W. 1st and Pearl would have been better removed, traffic lanes narrowed and moved to one side of the street or the other, and room for human use added. For Jeff Speck's innovative (and predictably discarded) thoughts on this stretch of street, go here and scroll to page 68.

For previous "Grid Control" series links, go here: Grid Control, Vol. 28: Elm Street capitulates to two-way modernity with a whimper, not a bang. Now, to the next stage.

Lucky ol' Cornerstone Engineering: Redevelopment awards $17,500 contract to explore the possibility of "wrapping the parking garage and adding apartments and businesses to the structure."

Here's one out the blue.

Redevelopment Commission secretary Adam "Where the Fix Is Always In" Dickey records Irving Joshua's strange musings on the possibility of the State Street parking garage's adaptive reuse (from the meeting of February 14).

Wouldn't you love it if Cornerstone came back with a recommendation to convert the parking garage into a farmers market?

Develop New Albany's on-line farmers market "poll" is a reeking, juvenile cesspool of intellectual dishonesty. (March 8, 2014)

Why is DNA opposed to having an intelligent community discussion about the farmers market and its place in a revitalizing downtown without resorting to the misconceptions and scaremongering?

Moreover, if we're paying engineering consultants to explore different uses for the parking garage, does it mean we don't have a parking problem, after all?

We need to hurry with the public art solution before Dogs Playing Poker wins -- again.

My State Street Parking Garage public art dream.

Even better: Hang a Trabi right in the center.

Zoo TV Tour

Signage disparities at the State Street Parking Garage.

Use of the parking garage emerged as a topic at Tuesday morning's merchant meeting.

There are two problems with the explanation above (particularly "evenings and weekends") as printed on recently installed exterior signage.

First, the print is too small to be gleaned by passing motorists who want to know the story without stopping. As most business owners would tell you, better to approach it like this, with a mostly truthful bait 'n' switch:

FREE PARKING

*with certain periodic exceptions

Moreover, exterior and interior signs don't tell the same overall story with respect to permit and public spaces ...

 ... and the interior signs make no mention of the free times. It's misleading, and the interior signs need to be brought up to date.

None of this explains the parking garage's chronic emptiness -- here, on a Wednesday evening around 7 p.m.

Part of it is cultural. Part of it is the idiocy of our auto-centric straitjacket. Part of it is the inability of downtown stakeholders to think consistently beyond their front doors, to the larger street (and parking) grid spread over numerous square blocks, one best understood (and overhauled) by urban-oriented solutions taking place all over the country.

But those parking garage signs ... at least they can be harmonized, can't they?

On the farmers market, planning and junctures, Gonder nails it yet again.

Once again, John Gonder makes a thoughtful, well-reasoned case for thinking outside New Albany's self-imposed boxes (his previous post is here).

Whether intended or incidental, John's two recent essays point to the glaring absence of a downtown economic development plan. Such a plan is periodically given lip service; it might even exist somewhere, rolled up on a dusty shelf, or crammed into a shoebox in the corner where the 8-track tapes were tossed a generation ago.

In-fill construction at the current farmers market location should be a priority stemming from a coherent plan, and yet piecemeal randomness remains the order of the planning day, almost certainly because short-term political expediencies are better served by the latter.

Is City Hall's previously stated goal of rendering the city "physically cleaner, financially stronger and fundamentally better" being achieved by anchoring the farmers market to its current location? If so, how? Can there be a transparent public discussion of this and other development issues?

Am I asking too many questions again?

Jump Step, by John Gonder (Gonder for New Albany At-Large)

... The Farmer's Market has an enviable record of success at its current location. I applaud and support the efforts of those who have brought it to this juncture. But, New Albany has likewise reached a juncture. One where we can embrace the efforts of those who have led the entrepreneurial resurgence of the downtown. Stretch the economic development canvas so as to paint a brighter future for downtown. Or, we can hunker down, stay on the same path, and recoil from something untried and new ...

... When I originally proposed the garage as a site for the market it was done as a reaction to the higher cost the Council was being asked to agree to. But, since that idea was originally voiced, I've come to believe there are stronger reasons than cost alone supporting a move of the market to the garage. And I believe those reasons would work to the long term benefit of the Farmer's Market as a valuable, sustainable, and important part of the downtown's current success. All while setting the table for infill growth at the corner of Bank and Market Streets, which can further advance the revitalization of our city.

Goebbels said it best.

Or perhaps it was Goering.

No matter the source, it remains the case that the bigger and more breathtaking the lie, the more likely gullible folks are to believe it. Locally, no one fabricates them better than the 1st district’s Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey, who dispensed his favorite tall tale to the Tribune’s reporter in an article today about the city budget.

Coffey proposes using money owed to the city’s Economic Development Income Tax fund from the State Street parking garage tax-increment financing district, to float a bond for paying for officers.

The old “pay back the $3 million” line should be enshrined on the Urban Legends web site alongside the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. My colleague Jeff rebutted it only recently in the comments section of another blog, after which the pins could be heard dropping.

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The bond for the parking garage was initially approved by the Council so that it would be paid by both EDIT and TIF, with a majority coming from EDIT.

As stated in the notes, the bank didn't finish the top floors of its building as soon as expected. That means not as much TIF was collected as expected in the earliest years of the bond, hence the $256K shortfall mentioned.

The Council was asked to appropriate additional EDIT to cover that shortfall and the lease rental reserve. That total, according to the notes, was $580K.

The rest of the $3.6 million had already been allocated to the garage in the original bond agreement. It was neither extra nor a loan. Only the $580K was additional. The $3,696,350 mentioned was the total amount of EDIT spent on the garage including both the $3 million already pledged by the council and the additional $580K to be requested.

You'll also note that Mr. Malaysz suggested that the money ($580K) COULD be paid back. Just because he mentioned it in a Redevelopment meeting DOES NOT mean that the Council voted to set it up that way. The notes posted mean only that it was discussed as a possibility outside of a Council meeting.

When Dan Coffey brought a bogus resolution forward to pay more than $3 million from TIF to EDIT last year based on this rumor instead of actually doing his homework (he never even requested information about the garage bond), Mr. Rosenbarger offered to provide Coffey and the entire Council with the original bond documentation showing his error. Coffey, of course, refused.

Since that time, the long disproven rumor of a $3 million loan has continued to circulate, usually from anonymous sources who, like Coffey, are more interested in political turmoil than the truth.

Note also that the same anonymous gripes continue to claim on your blog, as did Coffey at the time, that our tax dollars subsidize the operation of the parking garage.

Their own notes here prove them wrong, showing that the garage actually turns a small profit each year. They'll no doubt purposely forget that and go back to griping about subsidizing garage operations soon.

In short, why doesn't TIF pay back $3 million to EDIT? Because it doesn't owe EDIT $3 million and never did.

Besides, EDIT money can be spent on anything that TIF can be used to finance. What's the point of continuing to demand the false repayment if the money can be spent on the important projects you mention anyway?