Absentee imperial mayor? City council should delay the Reisz Elephant vote until Deaf Gahan deigns to appear and answer questions. Isn't that why he's here?

Consider it foreshadowing (August 10, 2017):

Reisz Vote Buy Bonanza: "The News and Tribune asked to interview Mayor Jeff Gahan and was instead referred to statements in a news release."

Monday's council vote on the Municipal Government Self-Stimulation Act of 2018, aka Uncage the Reisz Elephant, will no doubt place take place with either Mike Hall or new hire Josh Staten on hand to "communicate" from the mayor.

It will be the latest in a long series of absolutely critical, time-sensitive-or-the-deluge council ballots at which Jeff Gahan has remained sequestered in the command bunker with the campaign finance abacus, a case of Bud Light Tangerine and the Netflix play list.

Of course, there's good reason why the forever agoraphobic Gahan's team of bootlicking sycophants must keep him safely secured against questions, and it's because the moment any public interaction strays from the script (read: eludes the control of handlers), the mayor's inability to improvise, or to connect with genuine human beings (as opposed to inanimate objects) is blatantly exposed.

When this happens, the harder Gahan tries, the worse it gets -- and the angrier he becomes.

In this now legendary video from city hall's rigged January meeting about the "Mayor Jeff M. Gahan Presents the Mt. Tabor Campaign Finance and Roadway Expansion Project," the mayor's petulance escalates with each of his dully repetitive refrains of "that's why we're here," until he's aggressively demanding to know why citizens aren't listening to him, even as he insists that this Potemkin facade of a meeting was staged to prove he's listening to them.

It's required viewing for every voter in 2019, and would be a comedy classic if not for the gravity of Gahan's serial ineptitude.

Will we catch a glimpse of the Great White Hope amid Monday's final vote on the Reisz Elephant? In my view, council should delay the vote until Gahan materializes to answer questions.

Meanwhile, last evening's guest column is worth a hard look.

Councilman David Barksdale's role in the Reisz Affair deserves closer scrutiny -- and his fellow historic preservationists should be the ones most worried. They've tied themselves to one mayor and his squalid motives, and thrown all their eggs into one basket.

Reisz's ripple effects will be much less in terms of economic development than proponents claim, and far more extensive as they pertain to compromising historic preservationists' credibility.

GUEST COLUMN: David Barksdale must recuse himself from the Reisz city hall vote.

As for the municipal corporate attorney's scowling and defensive (35 Questions) performance before council on June 21st -- these being the questions Gahan should be answering -- let's turn it over to the newspaper.

NEW ALBANY: Debate rages on over Reisz building, by Chris Morris (A Tom May Joint)

NEW ALBANY — For more than one hour New Albany City Attorney Shane Gibson stood before the city council Thursday night and answered 35 questions submitted to him about the proposed move of city hall to the vacant Reisz Furniture building. Many of the questions had been asked before, and many focused on the yearly payment and the added space the city would be acquiring.

Thursday was just a preview of what's to come.

The council plans to take a final vote on whether to move city offices to the Reisz building, which would be developed by Denton Floyd Real Estate Group, on July 2. Gibson will be back to answer more questions then prior to the vote, and provide additional input. The ordinance to use Economic Development Income Tax money for the project passed its first two readings last month by a 5-4 vote.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Agoraphobia with a peniaphobic chaser, or the drunkenness of a sociopath's power.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

In April of 2016, we offered the word "agoraphobia" for Shane's consideration. Today's reprise (below) is occasioned by two occurrences.

First, I yet again caught myself mispronouncing "agoraphobia."

It's ag-uh-ruh-FOE-be-uh, and if I owned a blackboard, I'd be standing there like Bart Simpson writing the pronunciation 100 times in the hope of getting it right in the future.

Second, someone asked me this seemingly unrelated question: Does Mayor Jeff Gahan possess a phobia about poor people?

You'll be delighted (or saddened) to know that yes, there's a word for this.

Peniaphobia

Etymology
From the Greek πενία poverty and φόβος panic, fear
Related to Latin penuria (“poverty”)

Noun
peniaphobia ... The fear of poverty and/or poor people.

Assuming a fear of poverty, one needn't be a credentialed professional to surmise that for one to fear the condition of poverty might well presuppose a fear of those who are impoverished -- or more likely, a sense of loathing toward them.

Especially if the poor can't be relied upon to vote, and/or when the ground beneath their feet is deemed more valuable than the dignity of their existence, or somehow more cost effective than pursuing measures to help lift them from it.

11 Signs Your Mayor May Be A Sociopath, at Huffington Post.

This brings us back to agoraphobia, because throughout 2017, as Gahan has staged his hostile takeover (putsch) of public housing for the purpose of eliminating as much of it as he can, you'll notice that he has refrained from speaking to residents of public housing, or those who'll be impacted the most by his peniaphobia.

---

April 27, 2016

Today's word is occasioned by an inquiry from a regular reader: "It seems that Mayor Gahan tries to avoid being in a position of spontaneity in a crowd. What do you think causes that?"

One possible explanation is online.com/index.php?term=agoraphobia">agoraphobia.

agoraphobia

noun

"Fear of open spaces," 1873, from German Agorophobie, coined 1871 by Berlin psychiatrist Carl Westphal (1833-1890) from Greek agora "open space" (see agora) + -phobia "fear." Related: Agoraphobe; agoraphobic.

In ancient Greece, the agora was an open space in the city, used for assemblies, meetings and markets. The term agoraphobia doesn't so much imply a fear of the open space itself, but fear of public spaces and crowds occupying them, because these cannot be controlled. If there is no control, panic ensues.

Note the pronunciation. It's not a-GOR-a-foe-be-uh, and as such, is an example of a word I've often mispronounced.

Definition of Agoraphobia By Mayo Clinic Staff

Agoraphobia (ag-uh-ruh-FOE-be-uh) is a type of anxiety disorder in which you fear and often avoid places or situations that might cause you to panic and make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed.

With agoraphobia, you fear an actual or anticipated situation, such as using public transportation, being in open or enclosed spaces, standing in line or being in a crowd. The anxiety is caused by fear that there's no easy way to escape or seek help if intense anxiety develops. Most people who have agoraphobia develop it after having one or more panic attacks, causing them to fear another attack and avoid the place where it occurred.

People with agoraphobia often have a hard time feeling safe in any public place, especially where crowds gather. You may feel that you need a companion, such as a relative or friend, to go with you to public places. The fears can be so overwhelming that you may feel unable to leave your home.

Agoraphobia treatment can be challenging because it usually means confronting your fears. But with talk therapy (psychotherapy) and medications, you can escape the trap of agoraphobia and live a more enjoyable life.

The Mayo Clinic definition contains several examples of the agoraphobia used in a sentence, but here's another one:

I believe agoraphobia explains Mayor Jeff Gahan's reluctance to attend city council meetings, as well as his tendency to avoid unscripted appearances.

---

And, for October 2017:

When it comes to Mayor Jeff Gahan's complete absence of empathy for those who might lose their homes owing to his hostile takeover of public housing, agoraphobia and peniaphobia taken together comprise a toxic cocktail of the sort only Adam Dickey would willingly chug.

Gahan AWOL as Kokomo's mayor speaks: "Public safety is also about the health and well-being of our citizens.”

Judging from the following, Kokomo's Democratic mayor sounds almost ... egad, democratic.

And in Indiana, no less. How is it even possible?

Here in New Albany, Jeff Gahan's ongoing vermin eradication crusade against New Albany's least well-off citizens has taken on such central importance that he can't even take the time to deliver a State of the City address.

Maybe a PowerPoint of photos depicting the many bright shiny objects erected during Gahan's tenure, to the detriment of the tax base? That'd bring out the crowds, wouldn't it?

How proud are you, local Democrats?

Let us know what you think.

You are thinking, aren't you?

Mayor takes aim at improving local health, by Devin Zimmerman (Kokomo Perspective)

Greg Goodnight cites personal health as chief reason for improving city infrastructure

For the City of Firsts, 2017 seems to be the year of public health.

For the bulk of Monday night’s State of the City Address, Mayor Greg Goodnight took a different take on addressing the health and safety of Kokomo’s citizenry. To combat issues such as death by heart disease, diabetes, and car crashes, the mayor aims to continue improving the city’s infrastructure to promote a safe, walkable environment.

“Most people’s first thoughts about public safety probably go to police and fire,” said Goodnight. “Some may also think about traffic signals or snow removal. These are all important pieces to the puzzle. But the reality is public safety goes well beyond the number of police officers on our streets or how many fire trucks are parked at the stations. Public safety is also about the health and well-being of our citizens.”

To this end, the mayor examines the numbers. Goodnight cited CATO Institute statistics, which indicate American citizens are 70 times more likely to die of diabetes and heart disease than they are from violent crime. Americans, he said, are also 20 times more likely to die in a traffic accident than in a fire.

In the same vein, Goodnight said CATO Institute numbers indicate that the chance of dying at the hands of a foreign terrorist are one in 46 million, but one out of every 113 Americans will die in a traffic accident. Meanwhile, one out of every 53 Americans die from diabetes, and one out of seven Americans succumb to heart disease.

But locally, said the mayor, the statistics are more concerning. Citing the 2015 America’s Health Rankings, Goodnight claimed Indiana ranks in the bottom 10 states in overall health, and Howard County ranks in the bottom half of Indiana’s 92 counties.

“These are the real risks,” said Goodnight. “Traffic accidents also are the leading cause of death among teens and young adults. So much so, that our young people are three times more likely to die in a traffic accident than they are from cancer. Now, most of us, if we could, would move mountains to prevent cancer in children. Yet, when it comes to redesigning streets to make them safer for our young people, unfortunately through misinformation and misplaced priorities, it is often fought every step of the way. It is this that gets in the way of actually improving the health, safety, and lives of our citizens.”

To this end, the mayor said 2017 will bring continual changes that promote healthy lifestyle choices. Just as in recent years pedestrian refuge islands have been installed on South Washington Street and curb extensions have been built around downtime to promote walkability, this work will continue. After all, said Goodnight, a study from Harvard University showed that walking reduced the risk of cardiovascular events by 31 percent.

“Smart streets are safer,” said Goodnight. “After hundreds of studies, the data has shown that narrowing lanes, adding medians, building curb extensions, and planting trees along the street will, together, result in fewer accidents. And the few accidents that do occur will be much less severe.”

Jeff mayor's "state of the city" address on Tuesday was delayed five minutes, but for Mayor Jeff, it's been six years -- and counting.

To be sure, Mike Moore's "state of the city" address was little more than the usual yawner platitudes punctuated with auto-erotic back-patting, but at least he stood up in front of actual humans and spoke.

"It's going to be another exciting spring and summer in downtown Jeffersonville," he said. "Hundreds of thousands of people have already walked across the Big Four Bridge and have been pleasantly surprised by what's waiting on this side. But there's so much more to come."

Evidently Moore isn't finished, either. I always enjoyed finishing, but to each his or her own.

Of course, even if New Albany's mayor could muster a solitary yearly speech in the relative security of the third floor conference room (a hurdle he's yet to clear), it wouldn't change the sad diagnosis of agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia (ag-uh-ruh-FOE-be-uh) is a type of anxiety disorder in which you fear and often avoid places or situations that might cause you to panic and make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed ... people with agoraphobia often have a hard time feeling safe in any public place, especially where crowds gather. You may feel that you need a companion, such as a relative or friend, to go with you to public places. The fears can be so overwhelming that you may feel unable to leave your home.

It's simply impossible to imagine Gahan making like a British Prime Minister by subjecting himself to questions from elected officials, much less catering to ordinary citizens. Floyd County Democrats currently are gleefully (and rightly) lambasting Trey Hollingsworth for refusing to hold public meetings, but when has their shining mayoral light ever done so?

That's hypocritical, isn't it, Adam?

While I'm thinking about it, there's a brilliant new parody at Twitter. It's called @DeafGahan, and yes, the author isn't known. That's because Twitter allows anonymous parodists, including Rogar Bayler.

I wish it were otherwise, but no one has asked for my opinion.

Previous merriment:

Another year slips past without a "state of the city" address by Jeff Gahan, but his press releases say we're flying high.

New Albany: It's Where You Should Be (!) UNLESS You Want to Hear Mayor Gahan Give a State of the City Address.

Chronicles of New Gahania: Governance by press release.

Vaughn, Within City Limits: Episode II, The State of Our City.

Urgent note to Deaf Gahan: More evidence that street design = street safety = social justice, even more so than a doggie fun park.

At this late date, it can't be denied that street safety in New Albany relies on one factor, and one factor alone, to the exclusion of all others.

In short, someone in a position of municipal authority just might consider street safety for all users beyond the same old auto-centric boilerplate, naturally doing so piecemeal for one singular stretch of roadway, though never as an organic citywide whole, so long as the 80-20 federal matching funds come through.

Until then, we cross our fingers and wade into the interstate-rated traffic lanes, as pedestrians have been doing along Grant Line Road for the past 30 years.

Grant Line Pedway Project in New Albany moving forward (Beilman; N and T)

It has taken five years and a second Gahan administration for the ruling City Hall junta to even begin making faint, barely detectable gurgling sounds about public safety in this context.

Consequently, we must not ever forget that in New Albany, public safety has consistently come second or worse, forever submerged behind Gahan's bright, shiny baubles.

New parks and recreation facilities were prioritized, and came first. Doggie exercise was prioritized, and came first. The Farmers Market was prioritized, and came first. Subsidized luxury housing and initiatives to demolish public (read: affordable) housing units were prioritized, and came or is coming first.

In fact, the word "oblivious" has met its match in Gahan. Oblivious surrenders, and says go ahead, shoot me now. Never has a New Albany mayor remained so stubbornly aloof from the reality of everyday life in this city. Agoraphobia is a crippling affliction; too bad the rest of us must pay for it.

ON THE AVENUES: For New Albany’s Person of the Year, the timeless words of Mother Jones: “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”

Gahan’s grandiosely termed Downtown Street Grid Improvement Project might yield a bare minimum return on investment by restoring two-way streets, but otherwise it’s just another of his mock Potemkin façades, dedicated to garnering as much campaign finance lubrication as possible from the usual suspects in engineering and construction without making truly transformative changes to the grid.

It’s why the forever uncomprehending Gahan stripped Jeff Speck’s plan of its most potentially useful recommendations, and it’s why we’ll have to add them back as we’re able, with or without City Hall’s permission.

Street safety?

Clearly it's a social justice issue, not a campaign finance issue. Unfortunately for New Albanians, if "bad street design is disproportionately impacting historically marginalized groups in America," then Gahan's instinctive response is to ship the marginalized elsewhere, not fix the problem.

But there's a funny part to all this.

Gahan thinks he's a Democrat. Cue the laugh track, at least until you try to cross the street outside.

The Hidden Inequality Of America's Street Design, by Diana Budds (Co.Design)

New data shows that pedestrians in the U.S. are more likely to die if they're poor, a person of color, uninsured, or old.

Urban design has a long history of perpetuating racial and economic inequality, and the burden of bad streets is still being disproportionately borne by underserved populations. According to a new report, pedestrians in the United States have a higher risk of being killed by cars if they're people of color, aged 65 or older, uninsured, or from a low-income household.

The report, called "Dangerous by Design 2016," is authored by the National Complete Streets Coalition, a working group within the nonprofit Smart Growth America, which supports socially equitable, environmentally responsible, and economically healthy urban design strategies. The report focuses on designing streets for multi-modal transportation, and ranks every state and more than 100 major metropolitan areas by what it calls the Pedestrian Danger Index, or PDI, which assesses the likelihood of a car hitting a pedestrian by comparing the rate of pedestrian deaths in an area to the rate of people who walk to work. (SGA calls this the best available measure of how many people are likely to be out walking every day.)

"The leading goal is equity in implementation for all avenues of transportation," says Emiko Atherton, director of the National Complete Streets Coalition. "It really is about not only treating everyone equitably, but also encouraging departments of transportation to focus on the most underserved."

Put simply: Bad street design is disproportionately impacting historically marginalized groups in America.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Agoraphobia.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words? It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about awarding no-bid consultancy contracts by random spin of the economic dishevelment director's Nepotism Bottle.

To the contrary: It's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us who want nothing more than to understand why we must pay legions of Louisvillians to do what locals can do on their own, for less overall expense, all we have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

Today's word is occasioned by an inquiry from a regular reader: "It seems that Mayor Gahan tries to avoid being in a position of spontaneity in a crowd. What do you think causes that?"

One possible explanation is online.com/index.php?term=agoraphobia">agoraphobia.

agoraphobia

noun

"Fear of open spaces," 1873, from German Agorophobie, coined 1871 by Berlin psychiatrist Carl Westphal (1833-1890) from Greek agora "open space" (see agora) + -phobia "fear." Related: Agoraphobe; agoraphobic.

In ancient Greece, the agora was an open space in the city, used for assemblies, meetings and markets. The term agoraphobia doesn't so much imply a fear of the open space itself, but fear of public spaces and crowds occupying them, because these cannot be controlled. If there is no control, panic ensues.

Note the pronunciation. It's not a-GOR-a-foe-be-uh, and as such, is an example of a word I've often mispronounced.

Definition of Agoraphobia By Mayo Clinic Staff

Agoraphobia (ag-uh-ruh-FOE-be-uh) is a type of anxiety disorder in which you fear and often avoid places or situations that might cause you to panic and make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed.

With agoraphobia, you fear an actual or anticipated situation, such as using public transportation, being in open or enclosed spaces, standing in line or being in a crowd. The anxiety is caused by fear that there's no easy way to escape or seek help if intense anxiety develops. Most people who have agoraphobia develop it after having one or more panic attacks, causing them to fear another attack and avoid the place where it occurred.

People with agoraphobia often have a hard time feeling safe in any public place, especially where crowds gather. You may feel that you need a companion, such as a relative or friend, to go with you to public places. The fears can be so overwhelming that you may feel unable to leave your home.

Agoraphobia treatment can be challenging because it usually means confronting your fears. But with talk therapy (psychotherapy) and medications, you can escape the trap of agoraphobia and live a more enjoyable life.

The Mayo Clinic definition contains several examples of the agoraphobia used in a sentence, but here's another one:

I believe agoraphobia explains Mayor Jeff Gahan's reluctance to attend city council meetings, as well as his tendency to avoid unscripted appearances.