She left out something ... can't put my finger on it ...

Reprinted below is my correspondence yesterday and today with Tonya Fischer, whose official municipal job title is City of New Albany Economic Development Business Coordinator.

Previously, I'd asked her for the minutes of the Urban Enterprise Association meeting in November, to which she replied that she could send them only after their approval at the December meeting (3rd Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. up on the Third Floor of Horrors).

I thought a friendly reminder was merited, along with a helpful point about Thursday Top-Down Meeting notifications ...

Tonya

A reminder that I'd like to get those UEA minutes after next week's meeting, thanks.

Also, I didn't get a meeting notification for today's shindig at The Exchange.

Cheers,

R

 As you can see, she promptly replied ...

Roger,

I do remember you would like the minutes and I'll hopefully have approval after next
Wednesday meeting. I'll email them to you then.

Tonya

... to one of the two points.

Then again, batting .500 is better than her immediate superior has managed lately.

It's no big deal: Volunteers will clean what the city's design makes dirty.

This week, we learned that the new $7.6 million aquatic center will be clean. Really, really clean.

“We’ll have the cleanest public pool in the region.”

Apparently this leaves no money for making the city fundamentally better, insofar as becoming better might require paid positions, and so after bringing former One Southern Indiana administrator Tonya Fischer (with a "c") aboard to help New Albany economically develop as "economic development business coordinator," she's now organizing neighborhood clean-ups, probably at the behest of a Democratic grandee who had one too many Bud Lights and watched an 8mm Peace Corps retrospective before throwing some Jefferson Airplane vinyl on the Victrola.

Perhaps we can work with Volunteers for Peace to bring an international brigade to New Albany. They can occupy lawn chairs in front of my house and count the heavy trucks speeding past, and as the unpatrolled arterial streets encourage further decay and neglect, other volunteers can perform temporary, ineffectual clean-ups. Then, when we dupe the Feds into rehabbing some houses, someone can clip off $108K. There'll be dancing in the streets, and hit-and-runs in the crosswalk.

But I digress.

We welcome the advent of the City Services Network.

We shake our heads in wonder that there must be a public volunteer organization on duty as well as a private one (Clean & Green).

We walk down streets and survey the abundant evidence that band-aids like this tend not to address truly fundamental problems, and we drink a lot, and then we ask: WTF?

But consider this: There are people out there who are complimentary about the physical condition of the city.

That's nothing short of stupefying.

New Albany seeking volunteers for future cleanup projects; City Services Network will tackle various tasks, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Since Mayor Jeff Gahan took office in 2012, he’s had several conversations with people about the physical condition of the city.

There are some who are quite complimentary, and there are others who believe more needs to be done to cleanup certain parts of New Albany.

Gahan said he’s had the vision of launching a volunteer service network for more than two years, and that the time has come to make it a reality.

Volunteers are sought to join the City Services Network, which will be a group of people to take on different types of tasks from sprucing up buildings and properties to aiding nonprofits in the community.

"In Australia, a biddy is a two-for-one McDonald's voucher."

It says so here (number two).

The city has called a special meeting for Thursday morning, to be attended by representatives of the “downtown groups” (will Doug England's re-election team be there?) and coordinated by Tonya Fischer, the city’s new 1Si-trained Economic Development Business Coordinator.

As I take great pleasure in reminding all and sundry, she helped bring us the Ohio River Bridges Project during her 20-year tenure at One Southern Indiana; now she's here to assist the city in coping with the myriad, adverse ramifications of the ORBP.

In other news, an all-points-bulletin has been issued, because Karma has been reported missing and mutilated.

While I exist in a perpetual state of hopefulness, and regularly am reminded of the futility therein, surely Ms. Fischer has no idea as to the size of the too-many-cows pie she's about to step into. As an example, last week, Develop New Albany served notice that downtown is all about it, because it's time for the city to pay back the organization for the farmers market, which it did not originate, and which operates on property it does not own, and for which there exists no plan for future development.

Goodness gracious. How many times must we indemnify DNA's creaking politburo? $108,000, then $340,000 ... and for what? Another spin of the wheel as to what's political and what isn't? If it were up to me, we'd spend the entirety of Thursday's meeting discussing how to remake DNA into something remotely youthful and relevant, and if reinvention is impossible, send it down the river on a hijacked coal barge, the EPA be damned.

Did I mention more youthful?

Anyway, meeting participants have been asked to contribute agenda items, probably because the city can't think of any. I have a few, and just to make the gathering complete, I took it on myself to invite New Albany Clean and Green. Maybe I really should drink gin for breakfast Thursday just to be in the right frame of mind.

Readers, give me a hand. What sort of agenda items would you suggest?

New Albany NOW profiles Tonya Fischer.

Like I've said previously: She helped bring us the ORBP during her long tenure at One Southern Indiana; now Tonya Fischer is here to help small/large/indie/chain businesses cope with the ramifications. Odd, but the video doesn't mention any of that ... but it does mention the UEA's facade grant program, while showing the house two doors down from mine which is neither a business nor eligible for facade grants.