Mainland Properties circles back, trickles off, and responds to Redevelopment.

Anita Massey, project manager of the moribund River View development, is the originator of the infamous "trickle back" reference.

June 14, 2011: Trickling back: It's about gravy, not gravity.

Earlier this week, New Albany's Redevelopment Commission finally decided that "trickling forward" wasn't enough, and besides, it had become weary that the money kept not getting shown.

July 10, 2012: New Albany Redevelopment Commission rescinds agreement over River View property

Trickle Platz wasn't thrilling us, either. But you already knew that.

July 12, 2012: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

Here Massey "reaches out" to Redevelopment (and the public) in a piece wisely deemed by the newspaper as "opinion."

NEW ALBANY — Mainland Properties responds to recent NARC decision

... Mainland Properties understands that Mr. (Adam) Dickey may have questions about the development, and we invite him to meet with us to explain our progress. If he has questions about the draft option, we encourage him to work with the NARC attorney to address his concerns. Of course, we regret that Mainland Properties was denied the opportunity to speak on our behalf at the Tuesday meeting, as we very well may have been able to avoid an outcome that belittles our efforts over the years and undermines public confidence in the redevelopment approval system.

Fortunately, given the ease with which these issues can be addressed, we see no need to issue a new RFP, and encourage NARC members to reconsider their position at the next meeting. It could hardly be in the interests of the City of New Albany and its citizens to recommence a process that is likely to take years to reach fruition when a “shovel ready” project sits at their doorstep. Such a capricious decision would send a terrible message to businesses contemplating investing in the community.

2011 Highlights & Lowlights: Picking and rewarding the River View winners.

"Seriously, what does that man think he's going to find in a dumpster, except garbage?"
-- from the posting, "Beautiful People Alert" (June 19)

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During the past year, a month's worth of daily NAC postings (at least 34 in all) were devoted to the proposed River View development project, in which the city of New Albany would provide a group of presumably penniless investors with $12-15-18 million (is there a number, really?) of publicly funded collateral in the form of a parking garage, which in turn is necessary for the group to borrow the money necessary to build expensive for-profit condo units atop it, with the whole ball of "Korbel gurgling" twine to be erected on perhaps the most significant slice of waterfront property left in downtown New Albany.

I tried to show them how much transformative brewing capacity could be purchased for a few measly million tax retention dollars, but it only made the messenger even more toxic.

Speaking for myself, I already feel the tickle of the trickle, because believe it or not, at a public meeting staged to fluff the stuff, one project backer actually referred to this process of TIF-inspired "economic development" as trickle back -- as in gravy, not gravity -- prompting one wag to rename the proposal Reaganomics Platz (later, we mischievously redubbed it Trickle Platz).

Surely the most revealing aspect of the predictable year-long spectacle was the decidedly non-demure eagerness of another penniless entity, Develop New Albany, to rush headlong into a headlock of a deeply political economic development proposal, when previously the organization could not bring itself to take a principled stand on proposals to toll existing transportation infrastructure to enable the ORBP boondoggle, out of a fear of appearing to be political and annoying local elected Mitch Daniels disciples: Mr. Haney, DNA support "trickle back" from River View.

The ensuing stench became even more wonderfully and delightfully odiferous, approaching Louisiana dimensions, as our merry civic connect-the-dots game played itself out through the year. We now see the very same DNA stalwarts who’d been designated to carry City Hall's rapidly dulling spears profiting from federally-provided featherbed monies pouring into the Midtown neighborhood stabilization effort, even as they propel the eager abandonment of DNA's supposedly anti-political stance, thus immersing the organization in rotgut TIF-disbursement politics designed to create a purely for-private-profit condo project standing to benefit yet other DNA stalwarts, while throughout it all, a whole lot more downtown houses than those currently being rehabbed with Federal stabilization monies might be upgraded with the same bucks required to enable upscale condos in a market pitifully unlikely to support them.

So, how do we pick the winners?

With other people’s money, that’s how.

Outside, it's New Albania.

We take the staircase to the first floor
We turn the key and slowly unlock the door
A man breathes into a saxophone
And through the walls we hear the city groan
Outside it's America
Outside it's America
-- "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2

Downtown New Albany's ongoing revival is profiled in a Business First article from July 29.

Historic downtown New Albany comes back to life with new shops, restaurants opening in wake of Scribner Place’s arrival, by Sarah Jeffords Pister (Business First)

"(River View) is going to be a public space we think will be on the order of a square or plaza you typically see in Europe,” (Carl) Malysz said.

When it comes to whoppers, questioning eases stress, and so one's first query of the deputy mayor should be this: Which Europe? NAC provided one such answer, a full two week's prior to the Business First reference.

Stop the presses: Exciting new plan for Trickle Platz at River View.

We also offered a vision of Reaganomics Platz with a human face:


Come to think of it, no one connected with River View ever so much as attempted to modify the unfortunate analogy wherein the benefits would "trickle out" to the community at large.

Any of them want to give it a belated shot? We're all ears.

Stop the presses: Exciting new plan for Trickle Platz at River View.

(Okay, it's really a model of Alexanderplatz in the former East Berlin, but if not for the functional rail service giving away the joke, you'd have bitten. Thanks to JG for the idea)