For once Deaf Gahan is right: The hilltop Fairfield atrocity is a "perfect fit" with maximum pay-to-play monetization.

The Fairfield Chain Hotel Atrocity in the newly created mudslide zone off State Street is a remarkably ugly building to be serving as the crowning achievement of any triumphant suburban development, much less atop a plat denuded and strip-mined to make way for it.

And yet Deaf Gahan somehow is impressed by all this. It can't be the aesthetics unless he's also blind, so it must be the campaign finance donations from the profiteers involved with the hotel's construction. After all, deaf, dumb and blind boys still know how to count the money.

Gahan's crack team of Goebbels-intensity spinners has gotten lots of mileage from this misplaced development obscenity, and we can only hope voters are sufficiently hip to see through the malarkey.

Naturally went WLKY went for the bait.

“It's a perfect fit and now there's talk about even adding another one (hotel) up here, along with a convention center. So, we're really thrilled about it,” said New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan.

That's right. A convention center, of the sort Gahan is resisting elsewhere in Southern Indiana -- isn't he currently peevishly boycotting the tourist bureau's convention center feasibility study? -- but moreover, a convention center on top of a denuded strip-mined hill, accessible by a single road, presumably to be augmented by helicopter, escalator or the Starship Enterprise's transporter.

Well, we "built" this city on Gahan's lies.

Time to get real, voters.

If you’re singing joyful hosannas for a greed-driven car-centric multinational chain hotel with low paying jobs squatting on an environmental disaster area when so many infill properties nearby sit weed-choked and unused, and of course an extravaganza reliant on heavy municipal subsidies for its very existence ... well, I feel sorry for you.

To be fair, a friend offered intelligent counterpoint to the effect that there's a case for "overflow" hotel space in Southern Indiana to serve the Louisville convention crowds, with the prospect of luring guests downtown.

This is true. However, I'm not contesting the potential utility of such a hotel or the fact that our obscene neoliberal economic system in America (masquerading as free enterprise) strives to create chains, which I abhor.

It's the fact of this hideous building sitting atop what once was a forested hillside, which could not had been built at all without the active "partnership" of a corrupt municipal government.

We have many spaces where infill construction in the form of a hotel would have killed a few developmental and economic birds with one stone. Instead we're subsidizing the sheer greed of property owners.

Remember: Generic mediocrity + pay-to-play monetization = Gahanism.

Explaining the mayor's Rally's/Checkers photo-op in the context of Pay to Play, the Suburban Experiment, and Strong Towns.

This embarrassment owes to boondoggle splashback. I'm happy to explain.

The City of New Albany subsidized the Summit Springs hilltop development by means of using the roadway to the top as pretext to redevelop the Daisy Lane intersection at State Street.

At the time, this intervention was artfully justified by then-redevelopment honcho David Duggins' assertion that by working with private profit-seekers, the city could be sure the ensuing development would be done correctly.

Duggins subsequently was packed off to ruin human lives at the housing authority, but this lies outside the scope of today's Rally's indigestion.

From Team Gahan's standpoint, the "right" results from its Summit Springs TIF One Card deferred costs were immediately evident, and to avoid clutter, we'll spotlight just one.

In fact the overall verdict remains very clear.

The city's participation in Summit Springs under the scarcely examined rubric of "economic development" inevitably meant that business winners and losers were being chosen by local government, as in the instance of the laughably termed "iconic" Rally's/Checker chain restaurant grand opening; just note that by virtue of the public subsidies showered upon the private profiteers of Summit Springs, this restaurant itself benefited from municipal subsidies, as these same benefits were unavailable to a true indie small business opening elsewhere.

The city's propaganda team desperately needs a dose of localism, and also might learn from the example of Strong Towns, because in addition to the preceding, the infrastructure being TIFFed into creation on and near Summit Springs will bear maintenance costs in the future, and these are not being factored into the costs at present. While Summit Springs is within a short distance of the dense urban core, its rationale and required expenditures are firmly within the boundaries of the short-term "Suburban Experiment" described below by Charles Marohn ... of Strong Towns.

Read up, pay-to-play Gahanites.

Ha ha. I make myself laugh out loud at times.

---

What do you do when you need to change everything? by Charles Marohn

Our cities are struggling financially. But culturally, we lack a common understanding to explain why this is, let alone decide what to do about it.

Many people want to believe we’re simply not paying enough taxes. Others believe that our tax rates are too high. We might have too little regulation, or not enough. Some say we need an active government, and some, more of a free market... But at Strong Towns, we don’t see things in such binary ways.

Plenty of Americans wish we would listen to the experts and hand things over to the people who claim they know what needs to be done. Others believe we have too many experts, and that they know a lot less than they think they do...

We’re more nuanced here at Strong Towns; a little expertise combined with a lot of humility can be a powerful force for good.

A Cultural Consensus That Lacks Real Understanding

One area where we have something approaching an American cultural consensus is our need to spend more money on infrastructure. Left, right, center... it seems most people can agree on this. But Strong Towns advocates think differently.

What we at Strong Towns have seen so clearly is that our cities struggle not from the lack of a cultural consensus, but because of one.

We’ve structured our economy around the principles of the Suburban Experiment, an approach to growth that provides lots of short-term rewards at the expense of our long-term strength and resiliency. Our cultural consensus on infrastructure spending is built on false statistics and short-term planning, but it lacks a common understanding about the root causes of financial failure and financial success.

Strong Cities, Towns and Neighborhoods

If America is going to be a strong country, it must first have strong cities, towns and neighborhoods.

We can't manufacture prosperity with infrastructure spending or federal dollars; it has to be built from the bottom up.

We understand that cities become strong and resilient when they grow incrementally, when they shun the easy path of simplistic solutions and instead do the hard work of making modest investments over a broad area over a long period of time.

We know that local governments must focus on their financial productivity and that doing this math is not optional if we want to create prosperous places.

And at Strong Towns, we know that the cities that obsess about the struggles of their own residents — cities that make a commitment to observe where people struggle day-to-day within the community, and then focus on continuously doing the next smallest thing to reduce that struggle — these cities are not only going to help people; they are going to be making the highest returning investments they can possibly make. They are going to become Strong Towns.

These are radical insights. They run counter to our current consensus about growth, development and infrastructure. Yet, when we share these radical notions with others — when we have a chance to expose people to the Strong Towns message and our vision of the future — something amazing happens.

A Powerful, Radical Message That we can All Agree on

People who don’t agree — who can’t even productively talk to each other today — find something they agree on in Strong Towns. Something challenging. Something radical. Something that, if spread to enough people, can form that basis of a new cultural consensus.

A strong America made up of strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. That’s the vision.

We have a powerful message and we have built our organization around a movement to spread it. We’re attacking the complex problem of struggling cities by changing the current cultural consensus. We do this in three simple ways:

We create content.
We distribute that content as broadly as possible.
We nudge people to take action.

And it’s working. Don't miss out. Be part of what we're building together. Memberships start at just $5 per month. Join the movement.

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.

River Run Family Waterpark can't slow down.

Technically, it's acceptable to swing on a 3 and 0 count if the pitcher grooves a fastball with no mustard.

Holy cow, Joe Sixpack! It turns out your own two eyes were right about Summit Springs stormwater runoff.

As to my long-term point about the theory and practice of journalism, there's this (story link below).

Surveyor David Ruckman and project engineer Scott Moser provided updates on the project at Tuesday's New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety meeting. They also addressed concerns about recent water runoff issues on State Street.

Ruckman, who is working on the Summit Springs project, said developers will address these runoff issues with a new detention basin that will control the water flow coming from the development site.

He said there are erosion control plans in place at Summit Springs, but the excessive rainfall events on June 20 and Sept. 8 exceeded those defenses.

It is fitting and proper for the reporter to record Ruckman's comments just as the surveyor made them at the Board of Public Works meeting. It's also axiomatic that Ruckman and his fellow Summit Springs project managers might not always wish to utter publicly what they know privately to be the case -- for whatever reason.

Conversely, it is not inconceivable that they're simply mistaken, but in the case of trusting one's own eyes about stormwater runoff problems at Summit Springs, even as city officials assure us all "technical" standards are being implemented, it turns out the public's vision has been very clear -- so much so that added detention precautions will be implemented.

Unfortunately,the story likely ends here. According to the newspaper, it has done its job by faithfully replicating Ruckman's comments. Still, wouldn't it be good to know more, both as it pertains to past performance and future expectations?

The potential follow-up questions ask themselves:

• What's the definition of a "normal" rainfall, given two rainfalls in less than three months have exceeded the norm?
• Are these excessive rainfalls happening more often?
• What exactly is the legally mandated minimum retention effort required for approval?
• What are the implications for Phase Two of the Summit Springs hilltop development?

And so on, and so forth, except we've been conditioned to expect that the newspaper's coverage now will cease, at least until the next rainfall event occurs. Usually it does, and this isn't the responsibility of the reporters. It's about management, which in the News & Tribune's case restricts the bulk of local coverage to feel-good human interest stories and gets investigative only when the target is sufficiently distant to pose no threat to the bottom line.

Not that I'm a cynic, but if so, I'd not only be asking the follow-up questions above. I'd be asking for the newspaper's explanation of current advertising revenue from Summit Springs planners and builders, as well as potential ad proceeds from the various chain businesses set to occupy the site -- all of it in the context of possible environmental hazards (among other unsavory ripple effects emanating from the development).

The genuine, over-arching point is simple. These answers are important irrespective of the tone of the questioner's voice.

Someone needs to be asking them, and yes, perhaps there'd be less need for gutter politics, exaggerated polemics and pure satire (my specialties) if those entities charged with pursuing the answers consistently and aggressively did so. They don't, and the News & Tribune shares this prize for underachievement with the C-J.

Has it occurred to anyone besides NA Confidential Nation that maybe -- just maybe -- the movers and shakers in this or any other American habitation of requisite size occasionally can't resist the temptation to cut a corner here and gild the lily there precisely because no one's paying attention?

Fake news and false facts needn't trickle down to us from above. They're just as likely to flower from below, and the need for journalism to be vigilant does not lessen closer to the grassroots. It might actually increase in importance.

And it cannot come from NA Confidential alone.

In the coming weeks, I'll be making changes to my method of operation. My working career in beer has resumed, and available time has diminished accordingly. My career goals can be achieved only by cutting blog time even further.

In addition, for quite some time it has been obvious this blog has hit a glass ceiling, insofar as pro bono local rabble-rousing is concerned. I'm too opinionated to abandon commentary entirely, but I'm just as weary of the battle as my adversaries, who've effectively blockaded me from information. As a result, all this energy needs to be diverted into work.

The game's assuredly not over. My positions haven't changed, and you can reference them by browsing previous posts. However, I'm changing the rules of engagement on my end, making the blog's local coverage less personal and more analytical.

What I need from you as a reader is greater participation.

I've always intended these pages to be an anthology, with contributors from many sides of the local spectrum. Your chance to grab apiece of my infamy is now. I know you're there, because you comment on Facebook. You're encouraged to add your voice here, in slightly longer and more traditional form, with my eager assistance in readying your words for prime time perusal.

I'll have more to say about all this, probably next week. Right now, there are things to get accomplished.

To conclude, the Summit Springs horse long since bounded from the barn. The imperative now isn't to avert the damage, because the harm's already been done. Rather, we need to be minimizing the environmental consequences -- and never, ever forgetting who's responsible for it.

Summit Springs to address water runoff with new detention basin, by Brooke McAfee

NEW ALBANY — Saturday's heavy rains brought attention to stormwater runoff issues on State Street in New Albany. Now, one of the next steps for Summit Springs developers is to address these flooding problems.

The Summit Springs development is under construction on the hill next to State Street, and in last Saturday's heavy rainfall, runoff water flooded the hillside. A video posted to Facebook shows brown water rushing down the road that leads to Home Depot.

Technically, Chick-fil-A was correctly using sandbags in a vain effort to deter Summit Springs stormwater runoff.

The preceding screenshots are from videos posted to Facebook on Saturday evening, depicting run-off from the Summit Springs project.

They speak for themselves, and I've nothing to add.

Background can be found here and here.

Confused but cash-infused, Deaf Gahan mistakes Summit Springs water runoff for campaign donations and says, "Keep it pourin', boys."

“I think a lot of people, when you start making those kinds of adjustments and changes to our landscape, I think people should be concerned. And we’re concerned.”
-- technically, trademark gibberish from Jeff Gahan

He could never lie very convincingly, but as the untreated personality disorder advances, expect the vowel movements to increase in intensity.

Mayor: Despite water runoff, Summit Springs developers are in compliance, by Danielle Grady (Tom May Picayune)

NEW ALBANY — The video, posted to Facebook one month ago, showed a rush of brown water spilling over a wall and down the newly built Daisy Summit Road during a particularly bad storm.

Commenters were not surprised: “Figured that would happen,” said Missi Mathes-Wiseman.

Nearby residents see the video as proof that the Summit Springs development, under construction on a hill that towers next to State Street, isn’t a good idea. But the city, which approved erosion prevention and drainage plans for the project that met and, in some cases, exceed New Albany’s standards, says that’s not the case.

The Summit Springs hill is at risk of erosion and slope failures, according to a 2006 geotechnical report, which studied a previous iteration of the project. But the report also found that the hill should be fine as long as the developers, Summit Springs, LLC, follow certain recommendations.

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan assures that the developers are taking proper measures. Before Thursday, he hadn’t seen the Facebook video, which has since accumulated 17,000 views and 153 shares since being posted. But he did view a similar one filmed more recently, which showed a less extreme version of what happened a month ago. It was right to spark concern with the average viewer, he thought.

“But technically," he said, “[The developers are] doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and I feel good about the development, and when it’s all said and done, I think people will be very proud of it.”

As the mayor fantasizes, catch up on the story via these links.

Let's talk about the 8% and their affordable slots in the 14-story luxury middle finger high atop Summit Springs.

Illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work, redux: Can't Team Gahan's lickspittles get their damn stories straight?

Scott Wood and Shane Gibson predictably duck the reporter, leaving deputy mayor Mike Hall to explain ceasing, desisting, and illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work.

Did the developer of Phase 2 at the Summit Springs Luxury Mudslide Strip Mine Fun Park violate a cease and desist order yesterday?

A 2016 reprise: "High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places."

They're in it for the money: Team Gahan and its Plan Commission's cowardly and abject capitulation to the Kelleys and their Summit Springs development atrocity continues tonight.

Plan Commission to consider phase two of the Summit Springs Kelley Enrichment cluster muck development atrocity.

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

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Hill or valley? mural or statue? Bison or weasel? Evidently Team Gahan needs reinforcements.

Taco, Tiki and the Top Ten posts at NA Confidential for July 2018.

Longboard's Taco & Tiki grabbed July's top spot.

If you're on Twitter and aren't following Hon. Deaf Gahan, go there immediately and enjoy the shadow mayoral account.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy reconnoitering the neglected periphery for uniquely local perspectives on life in New Albany.

City Hall's allegations to the contrary, it can be grasped quite clearly that hundreds of you are reading, and we believe this fact attests to a keen ongoing interest in grassroots New Albany stories, perhaps because they're being chronically under-served elsewhere. After all, fawning stenography and inexorably multiplying religion columnists can get a newspaper only so far.

The July list begins with five "honorable mention" posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1. These statistics are derived from Google's internal accounting.

JULY HONORABLE MENTION (5)

404

Illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work, redux: Can't Team Gahan's lickspittles get their damn stories straight?

Wait, is Scott Wood somehow getting his groove back?

He'd best be careful, because to contradict Mike Hall -- the city's chief propagandist and royal court food taster -- might well to bring the wrath of Dear Leader down upon him.

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419

That ugly word again: Plan Commission to consider "luxury" car sales at HyperCars on 13th and Spring.

Now the owner of HyperCars, a newly minted auto detailing shop in the former ServPro building on the southwest corner of Spring and 13th, wants to sell "luxury" used cars.

This recurring word, "luxury." But like Mayor Fouts up in Warren said, "it's still a used car lot."

I looked all over New Albany's zoning code and found no reference to "luxury" anything. The C-1b zoning classification refers to a "local" business, and it references the stipulations of C-1a, which seems to be describing small neighborhood retail shops, not car sales, hence the special exception being sought.

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421

In 2017, days after Denton Floyd closed on the Reisz building using taxpayer money, these four high rollers involved with the project all donated to Jeff Gahan's re-election campaign.

$8,500 in one day's not a bad cut, eh? In 2017,the mayor sucked in just shy of $60,000 that we know about -- and it wasn't an election year. If you want to know what the Reisz building is about, follow the money -- and keep track of the transactions.

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439

Reisz Elephant people power tonight? If we're to spend $10,000,000 on anything, it should be for as many people as possible, not one single government building.

June of 2018 will be remembered as the month when Emperor Gahan's personality cult paraded past and the voice of a child rang out:

"But he isn't wearing anything at all!"

In future years, we'll look back and see an uninterrupted arc of hypocrisy, beginning with Gahan's hostile takeover of the New Albany Housing Authority in early 2017 alongside promises of rampant demolitions to come, and now culminating with tonight's fix-is-in $10,000,000 to construct his own luxury office suite.

440

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Whither Mr. White? I'd like to be an ant at THAT picnic.

There has been no formal announcement of David White's political plans, but a second primary challenge to Gahan seems likely. There'll be plenty of time to consider the implications, so we can leave it there for now. Suffice to say that things may be getting interesting. All together now:

#FireGahan2019

JULY TOP TEN

442

ON THE AVENUES: For Deaf Gahan and the Reisz Five, their luxury city hall will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

The broad outlines of an anti-anchor electoral coalition in 2019 increasingly are becoming visible. With each of Gahan’s grandiose and self-referential expenditures, the disgruntlement spreads.

The city’s lofty elites are over-confident, and the governing clique suffers from profound “institutional inbreeding.” The louder Gahan’s boasting becomes, and the greater his posturing, the more threadbare his personality cult’s clothing.

It’s true that Pinocchio Jeff will have pots of money in 2019, but the successful mobilization of Reisz refuseniks convinces me that we’re putting together a solid network for communication and cooperation.

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447

This letter is so poorly written that maybe Duggins actually dictated it.

Seems he would have known about "old and antiquated systems" all the way back in 2017.

If he did know, why wait for these systems to collapse before doing something?

If he didn't know, then isn't $125k per year a bit much to pay in salary to someone to be reactive rather than proactive for the sake of political propaganda when the well-being of residents (not residences) is at stake?

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485

Duggins, Gahan log into Priceline Dot Com as Riverview Towers residents are evacuated.

It's nice to see City Hall's efforts to address the ever-widening Compassion Gap by sending the Rev. Toran to deal with the media instead of Gauleiter Duggins, who has been too busy blaming Bob Lane for Duggins' own multiplicity of shortcomings to notice that living, breathing humans are in need of attention.

It's a kinder, gentler public housing putsch, wouldn't you say?

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490

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: The forthcoming beer list at Pints&union (bottle and can edition).

Old-timers will notice the presence of "comfort beers," "neglected classics" and "greatest beer hits" alongside beers like Stroh's, Old Style and Little Kings. The juxtaposition is purely intentional.

Indeed, it's a more egalitarian list than I would have written at the peak of polemical fervor, with fewer local craft brews; as noted previously, in my view the revolution has succeeded in large measure, and there are numerous American craft beers being vended in downtown New Albany.

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501

Duggins spreads blame, manure as the air conditioning at Riverview Towers fails on HIS watch.

Can anyone remember a single instance of a Team Gahan operative admitting to error? Cults of personality are like that, you know.

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530

ON THE AVENUES: Thanks to Joe Phillips, there'll be pints, union and good times downtown.

I’d like you to meet Joe Phillips.

Joe and I have spent considerably more than a year discussing the concept henceforth to be known as Pints&union. While I contributed to the theoretical vision and will be representing the pub’s beer on a daily basis, it needs to be understood that Joe’s the main man behind Pints&union.

I’m the rhythm guitarist, a supporting actor, or maybe just a guy who fervently wishes his friend and former employee to succeed in this entrepreneurial venture, and will do whatever is necessary to contribute to this end. I'm heavy into Pints&union -- I'm just not the big guy. That's more than fine with me.

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597

Plan Commission to consider phase two of the Summit Springs Kelley Enrichment cluster muck development atrocity.

Do you really think anyone would bear the brunt of the cost to develop in the wrong place if not eased by public subsidies? Equally obvious is the connection between those public subsidies, the mayor, and a firm like Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz.

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600

Did the developer of Phase 2 at the Summit Springs Luxury Mudslide Strip Mine Fun Park violate a cease and desist order yesterday?

At a time when public housing residents face daily insults from their colonial overlords as a prelude to demolition, Team Gahan brags about million-dollar condos in the middle of a strip mine.

Amid the blather and propaganda, we can be sure of one truthful eventuality: the volume of stormwater runoff coming from Summit Springs will be matched only by the amount of kickbacks flowing into the mayor's campaign piggy bank.

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646

Let's talk about the 8% and their affordable slots in the 14-story luxury middle finger high atop Summit Springs.

Have there been public incentives and subsidies involved?

Look at it this way: the city

is paying for the road, and short of a privately financed gondola, there can be no hilltop strip mine development without a road past the white elephants (I mean, bison) to the, er, summit.

Want to bet the city's own 8 percent rule won't apply to living spaces within the Gahan Memorial Tumescence Tower?

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1,247

LIVE TO EAT: Longboard's Taco & Tiki will open this Friday, July 27.

Let the record show two verified food and drink establishments debuting in downtown New Albany on Friday, July 27: Longboard's Taco & Tiki and the Double Barrel bar. There may even be a third; more on that some other time.

Let's talk about the 8% and their affordable slots in the 14-story luxury middle finger high atop Summit Springs.

Before proceeding, click through to Facebook and watch a brief video about Summit Springs watersports. 

You probably remember this.

New Albany Plan Commission: Phase 2 of Summit Springs needs more detail, by Danielle Grady (Tom May and Friends)

NEW ALBANY — Plans to start a phase two of the Summit Springs commercial and residential development are not detailed enough for New Albany’s plan commission yet. At a Tuesday meeting, the voting body tabled requests by the developers to consider plans for a 14-story residential tower and more on top of a hill overlooking State Street.

Also this.

The developers hope to sell the condominiums in the residential tower for prices starting at $250,000 and costing as much as $1 million for the penthouse, said David Ruckman, who is a land surveyor working on the project.

As for the sliding, a geotechnical study conducted for an original iteration of the project read at the meeting by a resident, says that the slopes in the area are only marginally stable. Ruckman acknowledged that there could be sliding on slopes, but only if they’re not maintained. Summit Springs would maintain the slopes in several ways, including a property owner’s association, he said.

But you may not remember this, as written in the city's newly minted comprehensive plan.

From the moment Team Gahan switched sides and triumphantly announced the city's partnership with the Kelley Greedniks for the development of a purely inappropriate hilltop, Dear Leader's propaganda ministry has been crowing about this marvelous public-private partnership.

Have there been public incentives and subsidies involved?

Look at it this way: the city is paying for the road, and short of a privately financed gondola, there can be no hilltop strip mine development without a road past the white elephants (I mean, bison) to the, er, summit.

Want to bet the city's own 8 percent rule won't apply to living spaces within the Gahan Memorial Tumescence Tower?

Odds makers, beware.

Illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work, redux: Can't Team Gahan's lickspittles get their damn stories straight?

Earlier:

Scott Wood and Shane Gibson predictably duck the newspaper reporter, leaving deputy mayor Mike Hall to explain ceasing, desisting, and Summit Springs Phase Two work.

Let's take another look at the latest installment of the Gang That Can't Get Their Fibs Straight. Seems their stories are changing by the minute.

UPDATE: Work has stopped in phase two area of Summit Springs, by Danielle Grady (Tom May Hyper Content Generator)

NEW ALBANY — A neighbor of Summit Springs in New Albany is worried that the developer is overstepping boundaries by working in an area of the project that hasn’t received city approval, but the project’s team says that they’re doing everything according to plan.

Summit Springs IN LLC was sent a cease-and-desist letter from New Albany’s plan commission director Scott Wood after workers began clearing trees in April for a new water line that will connect to a hotel.

The hotel is in the first phase of the project, which has already been approved by the city, but the tree removal occurred in a second phase area of the project, which has yet to gain city approval. As a whole, the 60-acre-plus development will contain restaurants, medical/office buildings and a 14-story residential tower.

The letter called for the halting of "all construction activities" in the phase two area.

David Ruckman, the surveyor working on the Summit Springs project, said that Wood verbally rescinded the cease-and-desist letter the day after Summit Springs IN LLC received it. Ruckman said he called Wood and explained that the tree clearings were for a part of the project in phase one.

Hmm. Ruckman didn't deny working in the phase two area, did he? In short, he's commenting in the breach, implying it's okay to work in the unapproved "phase two" area so long as the work benefits phase one -- and no one notices.

Work on the water line resumed as early as April 18, when the subject was discussed at a New Albany Board of Works & Public Safety meeting. But it was on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the New Albany Plan Commission tabled the developer’s phase two application at a meeting, that neighbors noticed that Summit Springs IN LLC was removing trees cut down in April in the phase two area. The developer was moving around trees to stockpile excess dirt from the phase one area, said Ruckman.

Same circular argument. Same violation. Same city non-enforcement.

Wood, who initially directed the News and Tribune to Mike Hall, New Albany's director of City Operations, for comment, later said there is no written document rescinding the cease-and-desist letter.

Fawcett Hill resident Aaron Hellems saw the tree clearing occurring Wednesday and contacted Wood, who told him the cease-and-desist letter was still in effect. Wood confirmed this.

Still, Hall stated in an email late Wednesday that the city was unaware of any violations by the Summit Springs developers.

Wait, is Wood somehow getting his groove back?

He'd best be careful, because to contradict Hall -- the city's chief propagandist and royal court food taster -- might well to bring the wrath of Dear Leader down upon him.

In response to neighbor concerns, construction crews for Summit Springs IN LLC have stopped work in the phase two area anyway, Ruckman said. Construction crews are now stockpiling dirt in the phase one project area. Work should is on hold until developers get through plan commission hearings.

No kidding?

"Now that we're doing what we should have been doing all along until we got caught red-handed," commented Ruckman, "can you please start looking the other way again?"

"I mean, shit -- this fix is in, right? Gahan's got it down. Can't we just get on with it?"

Hall's email also stipulated that the city is not the property owner or developer of Summit Springs, and it said that Wood would be meeting on Thursday with "all parties" involved. Both Hellems and Ruckman said on Thursday that they were not planning to meet with Wood that day. Ruckman did say that he expects to meet with the city and neighbors as the application process for phase two of Summit Springs continues.

Plan commission and board of works members were unable to shed light on the situation. New Albany City Attorney Shane Gibson also did not return a call and email for comment.

Bless Ms. Grady for including this section. A total of at least four or five city functionaries and appointees, and as many as nine or ten, have refused to comment for attribution. There you have it; with bootlickers and sycophants fleeing in all directions, down in flames goes Gahan's protests of transparency.

Again.

Hellems said that Summit Springs IN LLC's actions were part of a pattern of attempting to speed up the development process without going through the proper channels. He pointed to a situation in April 2016 when Wood gave Summit Springs developers permission to cut down trees without obtaining secondary approval. Wood said he was trying to help the developers meet a deadline to cut down the trees before Indiana bats made their home in them.

As we've consistently pointed out, the city was adamantly opposed to Summit Springs, inclusive of first and second phases, right up until it wasn't.

Then Hall orchestrated the press releases, and voila -- the city was partnering with the developers, who could not have achieved anything profitable without the city's eager TIF-impelled hillside road-building.

The fixes, corruption and kickbacks.

Aren't you getting tired of them?

#FireGahan2019

Scott Wood and Shane Gibson predictably duck the reporter, leaving deputy mayor Mike Hall to explain ceasing, desisting, and illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work.

The little people?

They're the ones who can't afford to play the game -- right, Scott?

Did the developer of Phase 2 at the Summit Springs Luxury Mudslide Strip Mine Fun Park violate a cease and desist order yesterday?

If isn't as if we don't know which side the city's on. Hall himself probably wrote the press release about Team Gahan partnering with Kelley Greed Inc. on this bountiful environmental catastrophe.

As such, does anyone really think the city is interested in the enforcement of agreements and covenants when it'll be primary election day, like, tomorrow?

Work is happening in phase 2 of Summit Springs. Should it be? by Danielle Grady (Tom May's Rolltop Desk)

NEW ALBANY — A neighbor of Summit Springs in New Albany is worried that the developer is overstepping boundaries by working in an area of the project that hasn’t received city approval, but the project’s team says that they’re doing everything according to plan.

Summit Springs IN LLC was sent a cease-and-desist letter from New Albany’s plan commission director Scott Wood after workers began clearing trees in April for a new water line that will connect to a hotel.

The hotel is in the first phase of the project, which has already been approved by the city, but the tree removal occurred in a second phase area of the project, which has yet to gain city approval. As a whole, the 60-acre-plus development will contain restaurants, medical/office buildings and a 14-story residential tower.

The letter called for the halting of "all construction activities" in the phase two area ...

Did the developer of Phase 2 at the Summit Springs Luxury Mudslide Strip Mine Fun Park violate a cease and desist order yesterday?

Photo credit: Tyler Stewart.

On Tuesday evening, the Plan Commission decided not to appear unseemly.

New Albany Plan Commission: Phase 2 of Summit Springs needs more detail, by Danielle Grady (Tom May Mimeograph Machine)

NEW ALBANY — Plans to start a phase two of the Summit Springs commercial and residential development are not detailed enough for New Albany’s plan commission yet. At a Tuesday meeting, the voting body tabled requests by the developers to consider plans for a 14-story residential tower and more on top of a hill overlooking State Street.

The usual suspects yawned.

David Ruckman, a land surveyor for the project, said that the request from the plan commission for more details was “expected.”

“It’s a process,” he said.

Had Ruckman said, "it's just a game," he'd have disqualified himself for duty by telling the truth, and on Wednesday, less than 12 hours after the meeting, there were questions about the willingness of developers to observe a cease and desist order pertaining to clearing land for the next stage of the environmental atrocity.

The Green Mouse was told:

A neighbor on Fawcett Hill emailed us today saying he saw a dump truck and a flatbed truck hauling something up Fawcett Hill. Some of us have called Scott Wood. Scott said he sent out Larry Summers. Says they were removing old dead trees. When asked if they were removing more live trees, Scot said he "didn't know." If they are, the construction firm is violating the cease and desist order. Also, did you see the picture News and Tribune took? It shows the hill sliding down behind Taco Bell.

It's a wonderful photo, indeed (see above).

At a time when public housing residents face daily insults from their colonial overlords as a prelude to demolition, Team Gahan brags about million-dollar condos in the middle of a strip mine.

Amid the blather and propaganda, we can be sure of one truthful eventuality: the volume of stormwater runoff coming from Summit Springs will be matched only by the amount of kickbacks flowing into the mayor's campaign piggy bank.

A 2016 reprise: "High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places."

They're in it for the money: Team Gahan and its Plan Commission's cowardly and abject capitulation to the Kelleys and their Summit Springs development atrocity continues tonight.

Plan Commission to consider phase two of the Summit Springs Kelley Enrichment cluster muck development atrocity.

Buffalo Dis-Trace: White folks dress up like their bison-killing ancestors as we glance at Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz's big role in Gahan campaign finance.

A 2016 reprise: "High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places."

There's a bureaucratic fix scheduled for this evening. The action is necessary to keep the campaign finance spigot pouring gravy to those porcine troughs.

They're in it for the money: Team Gahan and its Plan Commission's cowardly and abject capitulation to the Kelleys and their Summit Springs development atrocity continues tonight.

We've all been here before, and so from June 9, 2016 ...

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

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

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But first …

A STATEMENT FROM OUR MAYOR

My fellow New Albanians, as your legally elected mayor I’m committed to making New Albany a fundamentally better place to live.

Lately there has been controversy about a development project called Summit Springs – retail, offices, living space and a hotel. It’s an unusually complicated situation, but I believe this development will contribute to the improvement of the city, and so I’m going to explain it to you.

In zoning-speak, Summit Springs is a Planned Unit Development (PUDD). It originated many years ago and was approved, according to the planning and zoning rules in effect at the time.

Then there were delays, and in the city’s view, the property’s owners (the Kelleys) lost the plot. The city felt they needed to seek approval a second time, owing to changed circumstances. They disagreed. This led to them filing a lawsuit against the city, and eventually, the judge ruled against us, making their development inevitable.

Precisely because there are valid concerns about the hilltop site for the second phase of Summit Springs, I decided as mayor that the city would be better off actively participating in the refashioned development project, rather than standing aside and doing nothing.

In my view, by virtue of partnering with the property owners and their development company, the city could more effectively enforce the terms stipulated by the PUDD. Moreover, with the city constructing the necessary access road, we could tie Summit Springs to State Street’s existing grid in a comprehensive way, ensuring traffic would be better controlled on this already busy thoroughfare.

This decision to create a “public-private partnership” was mine, and mine alone. Whether you agree or disagree, know that the buck stops with me. I possess the ultimate authority, and my department heads follow a script that I write.

Having said this, I also take full responsibility for a few missteps along the way.

Had the city won the lawsuit, the ultimate development plan may have turned out differently, but in case we lost, we needed to have a contingency plan of our own.

This is why it appears to some of you that we were spending money to fight the developer even as we were preparing for the possibility of joining the development. Actually, what we were doing was being prepared.

Consequently, it has been suggested that the city’s economic development director may have been overly zealous in taking part in preliminary discussions with the development company hired to build Summit Springs – before the lawsuit was resolved, and in conjunction with the development company’s owner, who happens to be the economic development director’s brother-in-law.

It was a mistake for me to ignore the conceivable conflicts of interest in this situation, and while I honestly believe there was no impropriety, it’s certainly true that appearances matter.

Furthermore, I’ve come to see that nepotism is a potentially serious matter, and as such, I’ll be appointing an independent board of review to examine all such cases in my administration, regardless of where this body’s investigation leads. The run-up Summit Springs will be included in this process.

Now, back to Summit Springs. The bottom line is that while our city council is justified in revisiting its planning and zooming ordinances so as to account for future developments, and should do so expeditiously, it cannot retroactively change the rules for Summit Springs.

I’ve met with the families on Fawcett Hill Road, and their two major requests – to keep their road from becoming a through-way, and to increase the depth of the green buffer between their homes and the Summit Springs development – are both reasonable and do-able.

Because the city is partnering with the Kelleys on Summit Springs, I like my chances of ensuring these requests are honored. I’ll see to it that they are, and that’s a promise. We’ll get it right.

Finally, not only are we obligated to follow the law with regard to the Summit Springs PUDD, and to safeguard those nearby residents of Fawcett Hill, but we must be mindful of our ongoing, city-wide difficulties with stormwater runoff. We’ve been doing our best, but we simply must do better.

It’s past time for a comprehensive, updated storm water master plan, and it will begin at Summit Springs. Ultimately, this revised master plan will include the usual proven engineering solutions as well as innovative “green” incentives for homeowners and businesses to do their little bit in restoring hydrological equilibrium to the city of New Albany.

Thanks for your time. I’m confident that the key to future success with projects like Summit Springs is a fundamental enhancement of communications with the public, because after all, your tax dollars are at stake. Call or e-mail me any time.

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NA Confidential Department of Egregious Fiction Disclaimer:

“Yet again, you’ve been reading the words Mayor Jeff Gahan has not said, and will not say. These words are unlikely to be uttered, ever. Try to forget them. If you can’t forget, drink harder.”

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The Courier-Journal’s Lexy Gross provides an excellent overview of Summit Springs in the context of Monday’s city council meeting (See also: Tighter development restrictions sought in New Albany, by Jerod Clapp).

Locals ask council for help to fight N.A. project

Some residents were disappointed to learn Monday night that the New Albany City Council probably won't take action against a disputed development project, despite acknowledging that city officials and the developer potentially violated a 2008 city ordinance in the process.

"It’s so clear this is not proper procedure," said resident Aaron Hellems, who has continuously fought the so-called Summit Springs project. "It’s so clear that no one really wants to step up to the plate and do anything about it. They feel empathy and understand we’re in a difficult position, but when it comes to saying this is wrong and needs to be corrected, no one is willing to take it up."

The development in question -- located off State Street in New Albany -- was last approved by the city's plan commission and council eight years ago. The planned unit development district, or the PUDD, was delayed because of economic conditions at the time, according to the city's counsel, Shane Gibson.

At some point early on, the city agreed it would pay for an extension of Daisy Lane, forming a public-private partnership with the developer ...

It was left to Dan Coffey to astutely quiz the 800-lb gorilla.

"When did we go from being in a lawsuit against (the Kelleys) to being a partner with them?" Coffey asked Gibson Monday.

Gibson, who as corporate counsel for the city has been privy to the location of so many dead bodies that he probably knows the mayor’s gym locker combination, simply ignored Coffey’s query.

Scott Blair noticed, and promptly followed up, asking Gibson this question a second time, and the attorney quickly copped a plea.

He said he didn’t know.

Well, of course he didn’t. No one in the city knew, either.

In March, no one knew that Summit Springs was about to rise from the dead. No one knew that when it did, the city already had executed a deft 180-degree turn, ditched a three-year lawsuit faster than a used condom, and claimed a piece of the action, boastfully deploying that most exhausted of bromides, “public-private partnership,” to explain the turnabout.

In a city where 25% of the inhabitants live beneath the poverty line, no one knew how important is was for us to have a high-end hotel property clinging to the side of a geological questionable hillside, with an exhilarating view of Louisville for those well-appointed visitors in town to see friends who’ve taken up residence at the “luxury” balsa bocce hutches known as Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

But everyone knew, at least once the clearcutting began on the hillside, owing to statutory pre-emptive bat breeding regulations understood by so few public officials that John Rosenbarger came close to unceremoniously botching them within the confines of his Ohio River Greenway fiefdom, before rushing chainsaws at the last possible moment to further denude a constantly eroding riverbank.

By then, the full frontal Summit Springs slope already had been timbered, and when the inevitable questions started being asked, Scott Wood stepped forward to take responsibility. On Monday, Gibson again stated that Wood acted alone, entirely removed from City Hall’s oversight.

You’ll recall Richard Nixon saying the same about the Watergate break-in.

It’s a surprise that Wood wasn’t fired –not because he approved a clear-cut explicitly prohibited by the PUDD in question, but because by doing so, his boss’s public-private cat was loosened from its restraining bag, and the city was forced to come forward with its hackneyed “another heroic Gahan victory for God and country” press release before the errors in spelling and syntax had been corrected by the third floor’s cleaning lady.

Coffey’s question again: "When did we go from being in a lawsuit against (the Kelleys) to being a partner with them?"

Indeed.

For how long a period was the city spending money to contest the development it subsequently joined, while at the same time spending money to plan the exact terms of its participation?

Until we know the answer, there is an ongoing and perfectly legitimate question about conflicts of interest, even if wasn’t obvious at first.

The city’s economic development director is David Duggins. His sister is married to Paul Wheatley, chosen by the Kelleys to develop their land. Duggins’ preferred model of old school, back slapping, golf course visiting, strip club patronizing, hundred dollar handshake “economic development” (with taxpayer expense account) is tailor-made for just this sort of abuse – as is Gahan’s refusal to learn the meaning of the word “nepotism.”

However, one thing is clear. A City Hall constantly prattling about its prowess in public-private partnerships should be able to guarantee implementation of the Fawcett Hill Accords.

By doing so, Jeff Gahan would at least spare these ignored residents the financial burden of engaging attorneys and waging a war of legal attrition, which is their only choice at present.

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When I told this story to a local political old-timer and asked for his reaction, here is what he said.

“John Gonder lives up on Fawcett Hill Road, right?”

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I’d like a double for two nights at the Vindictive Suites by B. J. Sheraton, please. Check in is at 4? That’s perfect. I have bocce at 6, followed by mocktails on the River Run mezzanine.

Can you call me a cab?

Say what?

That’s okay.

I’ll just beam myself up.