Neighborhood litter: "A dirty and dangerous environment can heighten stress levels and shrink individual aspirations."

The Courier-Journal is a chronic litterer.

New Albany isn't particularly clean in the best of times, and a litter-strewn city always seems worse in the dead of winter, without any overgrown vegetation to hide the mess. As the following article suggests, a number of interrelated factors probably explain it -- none of them particularly encouraging.

The Next Louisville: What Trash Cans Tell Us About Poverty In Louisville, by, Jacob Ryan (WFPL)

... City data show residents in Taylor Berry report instances of litter at one of the highest rates in the city. Though city officials have closed nearly all of the complaint cases, the trash remains.

A review of city trash bin locations shows that, in 91 percent of the 340 complaints in Taylor Berry, there’s no public trash can on the block.

This isn’t unique to Taylor Berry. Across the city, data show trash piles up in parts of town with the fewest public trash cans. In fact, 73 percent of all trash complaints reported to the city’s MetroCall 311 service are not within one block of a trash can, the data show. And 41 percent of those locations had no trash bin within two blocks.

(Neighborhood resident) Cissell said the absence of trash bins sends a message: her street just isn’t a priority like those in the growing downtown Central Business District, with 110 trash bins per mile — 101 more than her neighborhood.

The crappier things are, the crappier they'll become. That's encouraging. Has the SOTU started yet?

 ... (U of L professor) DeCaro also points out a 1990 study by psychologist Robert Cialdini in which paper handbills were placed on the windshield of vehicles in a parking garage. In one instance, the garage was cleaned of debris and trash. In another, the garage was heavily littered.

The results were just as Cialdini and his team anticipated. People were more likely to toss the handbills to the ground in the littered garage, as opposed to the clean garage.

DeCaro said people pay subtle attention to their social environment — “and then we infer assumptions about the people living there and our relationship with it.”

Haven Harrington, who lives in Russell, also points to the “broken window” theory when discussing the scourge of trash in the neighborhood.

“People tend to want to disrespect your neighborhood more when they see trash everywhere,” said Harrington, a past president of the Russell Neighborhood Association. “They think, well, if the people here don’t care, why should I?”

Nash: "Can we make our town a little cleaner than it was before?"

I couldn't agree more strongly. To me, it's a variation of the broken windows theory. Treat streets like interstate highways, and they'll just become dirtier. Refuse to consider relatively minor expenditures to upgrade properties under the theory that property owners have a "right" not to be held accountable ... same deal. People mimic their surroundings, don't they?

For so long as the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party profits from slovenliness, I suppose we're stuck with it.

NASH: Time for spring cleaning, by Matthew Nash (News and Tribune)

... Just the other day I was at the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant. Right next to the speaker where you give your orders were two Styrofoam cups. One was for a different fast food restaurant and the other was from one of the local “convenience” stores that offers low cost fountain drinks. There was also a glass bottle of YooHoo! And several cigarette butts. Why do people treat our city like this?

Apparently some "quality of life" issues outrank others. Just carry a garbage bag with you when visiting the aquatic center, and be sure to drive.

In a single block on Vincennes Street, between Market and Spring, there are four trash cans for public use.

Anyone know why, or when they were purchased?

A fifth is in front of the Rally's, and sometimes it's even emptied, although the one shown above on the left side of the street has been crammed full of garbage for weeks.

By contrast, from Vincennes Street down Spring to State, an expanse of 16 blocks, there are three trash cans counting the one by Rally's. All three are on the north side of the street. I wrote about this in December: Random 2013 Platform Goals 3: Clean is the new Green.

Here's an idea for the future: Garbage cans. Like football's John Madden, I've diagrammed it so clearly that even Dave Matthews might grasp the utter simplicity.

Since then, I have received a prospectus of sorts from Jerry Finn of New Albany Clean and Green. He divulges that the cost of these receptacles is $430 each, and his sensible plan for placement downtown calls for 20 to be purchased. That's $8,600. It is a sum that Clean and Green proposes to raise, given that apparently the city has no interest in doing so; the organization asks for suggestions, and I'm thinking about ways to help.

In other news ...

During a work session Tuesday, the New Albany City Council will discuss a bond issue backed by Mayor Jeff Gahan that would foot the construction of an aquatic center, baseball park and soccer fields.

It will give the council the opportunity to discuss the up to $19.6 million bond note for the first time in public ...

... The administration decided to include the projects into one bond note, citing a need to move forward with the projects in order to offer more recreational facilities to residents. (Scott) Blair said the aquatic center, baseball park and soccer fields could lead to neighborhood revitalization and spark economic development in New Albany. Remaining proceeds from the bond issue could be used for a renovation of the downtown New Albany Farmers Market structure, as specified by the redevelopment commission.

A cool $19 million for "organized" youth recreation, but nothing to enable the safe practice of the simplest recreation of all, walking?

Quality of life as defined by modern facilities, while there's no organized system of trash cans on city streets and no sense of how assisting cleanliness might also constitute an economic development issue?

And so, my question is this: Why are we considering a $19 million expenditure for   recreational facilities, and outsourcing $8,600 in trash cans to someone else?

Random 2013 Platform Goals 3: Clean is the new Green.

Here's an idea for the future: Garbage cans. Like football's John Madden, I've diagrammed it so clearly that even Dave Matthews might grasp the utter simplicity.

So long as the city is packed to the brim with serial litterers, it just might make sense to strive for a reduction in trash by giving all of us cleaner sorts a few places to put the fast food containers when we're out walking and see them on the ground, although perhaps the first task is to convince the remainder of the populace that there is such a thing as walking.

Now, I'm purposefully lobbing this in the direction of Keep New Albany Clean and Green, apparently now a semi-official arm of local government, one making it possible for exurbanites to wag their fingers at the wretched urban folks -- you know, the White Countian's Burden.

KNAC&G seems enamored of beautifying prevailing symptoms rather than treating the disease, which is fine, but while periodic mass clean-ups are wonderful and necessary, wouldn't it be more meaningful to at least try and direct some of the garbage into receptacles before it hits the ground, or is deposited into those nice planters on selected street corners?

For that, we'll need trash receptacles, of which there are far too few downtown. They may need emptying every now and then, too, if that's not asking too much.

Maybe such a preventative clean-up crusade would be a better way of hectoring the Board of Works on a weekly basis than strategic flower placement, but what do I know, except that if there had been a trash can nearby this morning, I'd have placed the Big Gulp in it.

Maybe that's just too much micro-thinking for New Albany, where we're as far North as the Deep South ever gets. If so, I'm sure the linoleum lizards will let me know.

ON THE AVENUES: Trash talking.

ON THE AVENUES: Trash talking.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Political fliers from all parties -- except the Libertarians, who couldn’t afford them.

Empty styrofoam polar pops, portions of cardboard boxes, ATM receipts, fast food containers, and cigarette packs.

Broken glass from whiskey, beer and wine bottles. Soiled tissues, abandoned articles of clothing and used diapers.

Defunct lottery tickets, rusted auto parts, enough nails and screws to build a house, and abandoned plastic children’s toys.

No, I haven’t been hanging out at the landfill with the rag pickers. What I’ve noticed while walking around town over the holidaze is that the landfill’s intended contents (not to mention non-recycled recyclables) are failing to arrive at their final resting place.

The streets are filled with an inordinate amount of garbage, even by New Albany’s traditionally slovenly standards.

Those of a certain age will remember the television advertisement ending with a sad tear rolling down the cheek of a Native American, as he surveys the ugly, polluted landscape. If he were around these days, eying downtown New Albany, he’d be bawling salty buckets – and then tossing them on the ground for someone else to tidy.

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I have both a clarification and a confession to make.

First, I direct this rant not so much to the general public, whom I know to be serial litterbugs and utterly beyond reform, but to my fellow business owners, primarily in the historic downtown business district. Let’s face it. This is New Albany, not Oslo. Local government is not going to clean the streets and sidewalks for us. We must do it ourselves, for no other reason than it being better for business.

Second: Rest assured, I will make no excuses in a doomed effort to absolve myself and my own businesses from their share of responsibility. We’re as guilty as anyone else of tolerating the mess, and I admit it.

Since late November, there has been a pile of leaves near the NABC Public House front door. The same leaf pile appears yearly, in the same spot, and at the same time. Our building is situated such that when the leaves start falling, the gusts swirl them around, and you can watch as the pile materializes. Then it rains. The leaves get wet, and after that, they’re stationary.

Each year, I watch as the pile grows, waiting to see if any employee, manager or fellow owner will address it. As I write, the leaf pile is still there, but with a twist.

It’s the first fall/winter since we declared our building smoke free. All year long the customers (and sometimes employees, even though they shouldn’t) have congregated by the front door to smoke. Scan the perimeter of any smoking area designated for human beings, as opposed to cats, butterflies or Vulcans, and you’ll notice that irrespective of available receptacles placed to collect spent cigarette butts, it’s no better than a 50/50 proposition that they’ll ever come to rest inside one.

Verily, I’d be a wealthy man living alongside George Clooney at a villa on Lake Como if a had a quarter for every time I’ve watched a smoker glance in the direction of an ashcan, then toss the smoldering cigarette to the ground. Accordingly, the yearly leaf pile now is abundantly speckled with cigarette butts.

Naturally, the people smoking don’t care. They’re customers, and we’re obliged to clean up after them; it’s part of the deal. Unless commanded to pay attention, employees won’t police the area, either. Then again, the employees regularly walk past, over and through other parking lot trash without noticing it, while every time I show up at the Public House, I stagger inside with freshly snagged garbage filling both hands.

What can a poor boy do, ‘cept to reflect his damned upbringing? Later today, if the pile’s still there, I’ll grab trash can, broom and snow shovel, and liquidate it, along with the other 12,765 butts that aren’t in an ashcan and haven’t been touched for the past six months – since the last time I did it.

I know, I know. There’s an absence of management skill on display here. Beyond that, perhaps tolerance for squalor owes to nurture vs. nature, or the way slave capitalism degrades. Right wingers may choose to blame it on Obama. All I’m saying is that in 2012, I’m publicly resolving that NABC will do better, because it’s the only way I can scream at the rest of you without being a hypocrite.

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Earlier this week, I was walking through New Albany’s reviving downtown business district, admiring the many wonderful gains. It was fine, as long as I didn’t look down. A business owner and his landlord were chatting. Yards away on the sidewalk, there was a mound of leaves and garbage the size of a child’s wading pool. It was there the following day, too. Yesterday, it was gone – evidently shifted from sidewalk, over curb, and into street, so it could be ignored by the street department we no longer possess.

Shall we hand out garbage bags downtown, the way they give away condoms and clean needles in Switzerland?

I still remember the shopkeepers in Greece and Turkey, in front of their stores before opening, collecting the debris, sweeping up, and then dousing the remaining dust with water from tin cans and pails. It would be an otherwise squalid district, but the storefronts would fairly gleam, and the sidewalks would be spotless.

My fond wish is that all the small, independent business owners in New Albany would join me in resolving to be pro-active about tidiness and first impressions. However, all I can do is vow improvement in 2012 as an individual, and as owner of two business locations, and to spend more time with my own people, educating and supervising, trying to instill the necessary pride and eye for detail.

Maybe I haven’t worked hard enough. Maybe we should all work harder. But something must be done. Please?

CM McLaughlin inadvertently opens Pandora's Box of ordinance enforcement.

Well, it says so, right there in Daniel Suddeath's council meeting report:

Approving the (garbage pickup contract) extension without bids “deflates what we passed that ordinance for,” McLaughlin said in reference to the 2008 measure the council approved calling for bids for services.

Having already emptied his can of worms to become the second of two receptacles on a new cannular communications system (we can't afford string yet) with Steve Price, CM McLaughlin now has said openly and publicly what heretofore has been whispered only privately between non-consenting neighborhood association operatives:

NEW ALBANY PAYS NO ATTENTION TO ITS OWN LAWS.

Now what?

OUCH!!! Mama Said That Burner Was Hot!

As the April showers taper off and the May flowers burst open in all of their finery I note that one had best enjoy the peaceful refreshing evenings on the back deck swing while they last.

I’m reminded that the long hot daze of summer is just around the corner and if rumored upcoming events have any credibility, the 3rd Floor Assembly Room air conditioning system is going to get quite a workout.

Not to worry though as Trish promises to have plenty of Sierra Nevada on hand for the afterglows at Studio’s.

As I understand it Mayor England has been renegotiating terms with Southern Indiana Waste Systems in order that they take a more active role in collecting refuse other than just household garbage.

That would include yard waste, brush, the occasional sofa, and the like. Of course this service would require a stipend increase in monthly fees.

The implementation of such would free up the Street Department to return to their duties of maintaining New Albany’s streets, signs, and other infrastructure.

The other hot button issue that may very well be on this Thursday’s agenda for our Common Council is a proposed Sewer Rate increase for Georgetown customers.

You can link to the Tribune article here; http://www.news-tribune.net/local/local_story_135111700.html

The jest of it is Georgetown has been given several extensions to the agreed deadline for them to transfer their waste water to their own treatment plant thus freeing up capacity for New Albany to move forward with its own development plans.

As I understand it as long as they are feeding affluent into our system, we are under strict scrutiny from the EPA looking for capacity overloads.

Were that to happen for any reason, we’d be back in lockdown stage in terms of our own growth & expansion.

For a variety of their own in house reasons Georgetown has been unable to begin construction on their treatment plant and our Sewer Board has decided further extensions without an increase in fees would be unwise for New Albany.

Of course all these efforts and many others as well require Common Council approval prior to becoming viable. And the odds are??

As you can readily see the summer is shaping up to be a warm one on the Sunny Side of the Ohio!

So what think ye of the above proposals?

As for me, I’ve no problem paying a few pennies a month more to see the trash gone.

On the other matter although I have no beef with the residents of Georgetown, I don’t see the wisdom continuing to treat their affluent if it risks us losing the ground we’ve gained in our ongoing effort to pacify the EPA.

All in all, I’d suggest coming early for the good seats and bring your own palm leaf fans!

One Bag 'o Trash & One Limb At a Time!

On Saturday April 4th the Uptown Neighborhood Association and a few friends gathered around the dumpsters dropped in place by our very own street department at the Silver Street Elementary School and set out to clean up the neighborhood.

Once again the numbers of live bodies were few but the hearts of those participating would not be daunted.

Once again by Sunday afternoon all five dumpsters were brimming over with debris. One of the more encouraging aspects of this event was that landlords and real estate folks were right there with us picking up other peoples trash.

Brian Haesley went so far as to bring a dump truck which we promptly filled with yard waste and storm debris. Our thanks goes out to him for participating.

Pat Harrison was there as well making sure we didn't dehydrate by handing out plenty of bottled water.

In addition one our At Large Councilman Kevin Zurchmeide brought along two strapping young lads who dug right into heaving the larger limbs over the side of the truck body.

Another big victory that occurred during this exercise is that New Albany City Street Commissioner Mickey Thompson just happened on the scene Sunday morning as an unscrupulous soul was attempting to throw his truckload of old road tractor tires in the dumpster.

He explained to the lad that Commercial Motor Vehicle tires need be disposed
of properly.

That is to say the owners of such must pay those who deal with said tires to take them away as opposed to clogging taxpayer supported landfills with them!

As to whether or not the message soaked in, only time will tell. I will say to those who may be tempted though that we are watching you!

For you doubting Thomas’s out there I really do have pictures of all the above but Picasa and I aren’t getting on well this evening.

So we fast forward to this upcoming Saturday and find the West End Neighborhhood Group setting up at the intersection of West Market & old West 7th Street to rid their highways & byways of unsightly debris of any and all manner.

The time frame is from 8AM to 4PM and all are encouraged to lend a hand.

One need not live in this area to participate.

To the contrary. Doing so would not only show support for those who organized this weekend but would go far to send the message that we are serious about cleaning up all of New Albany.

So come on out, grab a trash bag and fill ‘er up! If you have any questions you may call 812-945-4100.

See you Saturday!