City Hall's staged Colonial Manor farce: It was INFORMATIONAL, you see, not COMMENTATIONAL. Deaf Gahan can't help it if voters don't know the lingo.

Last week's sadly shambolic City Hall charade on the topic of Colonial Manor's future proved a confusing, painful and infuriating experience for those community residents who hadn't previously witnessed the ridiculous extent to which power and money have gone straight to an erstwhile veneer salesman's head.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: It's the Colonial Manor video Jeff Gahan didn't want you to see last night.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 20: Buying and selling a city? Our master list of 59 Gahan wheel-greasers is a pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.

Numerous flabbergasted and angry social media conversations have taken place in the aftermath of the meeting. However this one may be the most unintentionally revealing of all. In it, a Gahan appointee and apologist is shocked ... SHOCKED that Dear Leader would ever squelch public opinion.

Oh, we see it clearly now. Clique semantics explain everything, don't they?

When Mayor-for-Life Jeff M. Gahan presents a public meeting, don't forget to consult the bureaucratic glossary to determine whether it's a public comment meeting or an informational meeting. 

Never mind that the glossary's city web site link probably is broken -- or maybe the link leads to the web sites of Clark Dietz, Jacobi Toombs and Lanz, HWC Engineering -- better yet, all three.

Okay, so it's informational versus public commentational, eh? Well, Jeff Gahan's elite insiders know the difference fairly well, don't they?

Conversely, regular folks living in the neighborhood near Colonial Manor evidently are so naive and pathetically unversed in Standard Gahanesque Gobbledygook that they thought Dear Leader might actually be interested in listening to them -- but it was an informational meeting, meaning the information originates at the top with unelected "fix-stays-in" committees, and then trickles down to the rest of us.

Not only that, but the trickle's about to become even more homogenized and cookie-cutter in nature. Note the timeline and methodology of the city's Colonial Manor development choices:

• Caught by surprise by neighborhood activism, City Hall scrambles to regain control over Colonial Manor propaganda
• An architect from TEG is hurriedly engaged and e-mailed boilerplate sections from the comprehensive plan and updated zoning code
• Hastily produced proposals use these boilerplate sections to restrict the city's gaze to "what our codes stipulate," as though they were Biblical injunctions 
• The future? The city's development "ideas" become increasingly center of the target for the sake of ease: minimum design expense and maximum monetization via the usual pay-to-play "contractual" suspects

Informational sessions versus public comment sessions?

Please, functionaries. Stop insulting the public's intelligence. Yes, we know you believe the grassroots hive mind cannot compete with City Hall's pathological need for top-down power, but New Albany has a genuinely meaningful public comment opportunity coming on May 7, and the informational cue is this:

#FireGahan2019

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: It's the Colonial Manor video Jeff Gahan didn't want you to see last night.

There is so much to say about Wednesday evening's typically orchestrated top-down, talk-down-to-the-public gathering at Fairmont that we'll be returning later with more thoughts on what might have been the Jeff Gahan's worst ever misstep. 

Gahan and crew very hastily organized the gathering as a response to rumors of grassroots activism. This was for the sole purpose of asserting Gahan's power to maintain complete personal control of whatever happens (or does not) at the old Colonial Manor acreage on Charlestown Road -- which the city doesn't even own.

By now it should be clear that Gahan has an unvarying, rote default setting as it pertains to governance: HIS way, or nothing. It's a default setting manifested by excessive secrecy, open intimidation and absolute control on behalf of a small ruling elite buttressed by special interest cash from afar.

That's it.

There is nothing else.

Gahanism is authoritarianism -- penny-ante, small pond and prom-planning-committee caliber, but authoritarianism all the same.

Kathy Copas and fellow neighborhood activists produced the video seen here. After informing the city of their ongoing work, their group was told not to bother; when the cool kids were finished cashing Gahan campaign finance checks from Clark Dietz, HWC Engineering, United Consulting and Jacobi Toombs and Lanz, redevelopment would offer awesome plans of its own, ones thrown together in a matter of days by architects from The Estopinol Group -- because reliable outside donors always know best about such matters.

Thus the meeting, and the city's hurried mash-up of "holy comprehensive plan" bromides and boilerplate drawings cribbed from the internet over Bud Light Mang-O-Ritas at the Roadhouse.

Copas and crew imagined their voices would be fairly heard at a "public" meeting, only to learn what the rest of us have known about Jeff Gahan for many years: it's HIS town, HIS power elite, and HIS way -- now youngsters, shut your mouths, have a seat, and be ready to endorse what the vapid governing clique already has determined without your participation.

Last evening Gahan didn't respect area residents. He doesn't respect you, either, unless you're holding a envelope stuffed with out-of-town cash. Why, then, should anyone NOT benefiting from Gahan's fixes respect HIM, much less re-elect him?

Here's another video clip, one of the Green Mouse's all-time personal favorites. In it the Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu addresses a handpicked crowd in Bucharest in December, 1989. The speech was supposed to be like all the ones before, with the crowd venerating Ceausescu and screaming cheers of joy for his unvarnished genius.

Instead, it took only seconds for people to begin booing. Like a deer in the headlights, the strongman froze. Perhaps at this precise moment he understood the game was up. In fact, the end of the regime was only days away.

Or maybe Ceausescu was saying to himself: "Wait. This isn't why I'm here -- no not at all."

Turns out he was right.

It's good for special interest campaign donors, but "Is a Top-Down Approach the Best Way to Revitalize Downtown?"

From the top, down -- you know, the same way water and debris washes down the side of the Summit Springs development whenever it rains.

Is a Top-Down Approach the Best Way to Revitalize Downtown? by Daniel Herriges (Strong Towns)

The scars of 1950s urban renewal still haunt many American cities. Among them is Richmond, Virginia, where a section of downtown called Navy Hill, at one time a thriving African-American community, was decimated to facilitate the construction of Interstate 95 and, eventually, make way for the Richmond Coliseum.

Now, Richmond is weighing a controversial project to reinvent Navy Hill in one fell swoop yet again, this time through a partnership with a private developer to do a billion-dollar redevelopment of 10 blocks of city-owned land. The resulting master-planned entertainment district would contain a brand-new stadium and event venue, hotel, food hall, and some 2,500 housing units—funded in large part through tax increment financing (TIF) that would commit a major portion of future property taxes not just from Navy Hill but from a surrounding area eight times as large. Local critics have questioned the expansiveness of the TIF district, and whether Richmond is mortgaging too much of its future on this project.

Strong Towns was invited to submit an op-ed to Richmond Magazine explaining why we think this is a huge gamble with a high opportunity cost—and the city should consider more incremental approaches to achieving the same ends of revitalization and increased wealth. Here it is. The below article was originally published in Richmond Magazine, and is reprinted here with permission.

There are incremental, neighborhood-oriented alternatives. They don't generate the same volume of cash for incumbent mayors; then again, maybe people living in neighborhoods should be the first objective and not fat cat donors living in Carmel.

The Incremental Alternative

A city like Richmond can do a lot to support and accelerate more organic forms of growth. At Strong Towns, a national advocacy organization that supports a model of development that allows cities to become financially strong and resilient, we call this model “Neighborhoods First.” There are hundreds of small investments in quality of life, vitality and public safety that the city could make right now, and we’ve found that it’s often these projects that deliver the highest return on investment for a local government’s scarce resources. A humble crosswalk, some street trees and a facade grant can bring up property values and begin virtuous cycles of private reinvestment. Technical assistance and workforce development efforts can give homegrown entrepreneurs a boost.

These investments are modest individually, but transformative in aggregate, because they respond to immediate needs.

You can learn more here: Neighborhoods First: A low risk, high return strategy for building a strong town. Note that Brainerd, Minnesota is the home town of Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn.

Cities across the country are starting to realize that the “big project” approach takes up too much staff time, wastes too much political energy and distracts too much from the basic needs of existing neighborhoods. Risky, low returning projects too often become expensive boondoggles that haunt a community for decades. Public officials everywhere are desperately seeking an alternative.

Neighborhoods First; A low risk, high return strategy for a better Brainerd is an example of how a community can grow stronger by making small, incremental investments over time. By observing how neighbors live their lives, by asking them where their daily struggles are, by getting out on the street and discovering what is actually going on, any local government can discern what their community’s pressing needs are. These projects are the high return investments and they are all around us.

As an example, think back to Mayor Jeff Gahan's secession from the NA-FC Parks Department, and our subsequent TIF-impelled expenditure of somewhere between $18 and $25 million to construct bright, shiny, big-ticket, park-like objects. At the time many of us offered the alternative of using half (or less) of the money to scatter smaller park areas throughout the city's neighborhoods, in places where potential users could walk and ride bikes and not be compelled to rely on their cars to reach centralized facilities.

But the parks boondoggle obviously had been pre-planned, even if there was no discussion of it during Gahan's first campaign for mayor. A better way would have been to involve the community in the plan.

But Gahan's not a listener, is he?

Few autocrats are.

UNDERSTANDING PARKS

Too much is expected of city parks. Far from transforming any essential quality in their surroundings, far from automatically uplifting their neighborhoods, neighborhood parks themselves are directly and drastically affected by the way the neighborhood acts upon them.
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

There is a common belief that a city park is necessary to compensate for the lack of open space urban residents have when compared to those that live on the outskirts of town. This tragic misunderstanding of the role of an urban park has caused us to overlook a prime asset in Northeast Brainerd.

A good park radiates value to the surrounding neighborhood in the same way the sun radiates heat; the closer you are, the more value the park should add. While New York City’s Central Park would be extremely valuable if it were developed, the immense value of Manhattan and the other boroughs adjacent to it would suffer if the park become a housing subdivision. The location and design of the park makes the city valuable.

At the same time, it is the city that makes the parkland valuable. If we took a piece of land in rural Iowa and re-created Central Park, it would not have any real value.

It takes people using the park to build and create the value that is then reflected back to the neighborhood. A lifeless park is the sign of a lifeless neighborhood. Fixing what is wrong with Mill Park is critical, but doing so will not restore Northeast Brainerd to prosperity. The two need to happen together.

An urban park is not compensation for a neighborhood’s shortcomings. It is a reflection of a neighborhood’s value and worth and, as such, is the most revealing barometer of success or failure the city has.

*Recomended reading: The quote from Jane Jacobs above is Chapter 5 of the book, which is all about urban parks.

Jeff Gahan's war against Mt. Tabor residents is another reason to flush the clique in 2019.

“If they’re going to continue to take the right of way back so then we’d have to come and repurchase again, which is a cumbersome option to begin with, I would just hate to do all that over."

City engineer Larry Summers' opening comment in Danielle Grady's newspaper report (below) perfectly summarizes Team Gahan's collective, bored and arrogant indifference to the lives of humans existing outside the institutional inbreeding of the Gahanite ruling clique.

That's why Jeff Gahan's here, remember? To pretend he's listening.

Mt. Tabor residents haven't finished yet, as Deaf Gahan faces a court date: "Eminent Domain Law Put to Test Against City of New Albany."

But that's okay, Jeffrey. Keep on keeping on.

Roll out the heavy artillery and smash the Mt. Taborites with a phalanx of lawyers, seize whatever land you need, and keep the juice flowing from the various contractors, engineers and vendors into the lifeblood of your campaign finance account.

Voters are quite capable of seeing Team Gahan's petulant displays of self-centered, regime-first spite. They're witnessing an escalating absence of fundamental human empathy of the sort occurring when the bunker-bound can no longer distinguish between people and dollar signs.

To paraphrase John Lennon, one thing Jeff Gahan can't hide is when he's crippled inside, and voters are sensing the unmistakable odor of decadence and decay, so please, Deaf, keep lobbing those shells at the dissidents.

With each explosion, votes melt away in disgust.

Have you considered which of your campaign cash patrons might undertake to hire you as consulting piss boy for six figures when the end finally comes? I'm betting on HWC Engineering, although ol' Jorge Lanz's checkbook has been smoking hot for a long time.

Or will they sniff the wind, catch a teasing hint of the political putrefaction, and conclude that veneer salesmen are no longer altogether that interesting once their power is gone?

I'm betting on the latter. It's going to be a painful comeuppance when the cult of personality is revealed to be fashioned from wet Bud Light Lime beer labels, but that's the way hubris works.

#FireGahan2019
#FlushTheClique2019

Legal challenge has city considering old Mount Tabor intersection plans, by Danielle Grady (Tom May Content Repository)

NEW ALBANY — The city abandoning its plans for additional traffic studies and going ahead with turning Mount Tabor Road and Klerner Lane into a signalized intersection may be an option for New Albany as a resident asks for land back that was taken for the stalled project.

“If they’re going to continue to take the right of way back so then we’d have to come and repurchase again, which is a cumbersome option to begin with, I would just hate to do all that over,” said City Engineer Larry Summers after a Floyd County Circuit Court hearing regarding the resident’s legal motion.

New Albany’s attorney in its Mount Tabor Road eminent domain cases, Greg Fifer, is recommending that the city takes that route. Ultimately, the decision would be up to Mayor Jeff Gahan and the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety, Fifer said, but he believes nothing is stopping the city from doing so.

Nothing, maybe, but public opinion.

Mt. Tabor residents haven't finished yet, as Deaf Gahan faces a court date: "Eminent Domain Law Put to Test Against City of New Albany."

Welcome to NA Confidential's 13,000th career post.

The Green Mouse has received a press release: "Eminent Domain Law Put to Test Against City of New Albany," and it's a corker, but before we revisit the overreach that city officials refer as Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project (is the phrasing totalitarian or Rosenbargerian?) let's recall an undisputed stone cold classic video clip from earlier in 2018.

VIDEO: "That's why we're here," Gahan flails amid a pack of lies in this classic footage from last night's Mt. Tabor project meeting.

Thanks to whomever posted this video at YouTube.

There's a reason why the forever agoraphobic Jeff Gahan's handlers keep him secured in the bunker, and it's because the moment any public scenario strays from the script, he cannot improvise. The more he tries, the worse it gets -- and the angrier he becomes.

In this video, observe his petulance escalate with each "that's why we're here," until he's demanding to know why citizens aren't listening to him, even as he insists his Potemkin facade of a meeting was to prove he's listening.

For a well-monetized but fading emperor with increasingly threadbare clothes, it just doesn't get any more illustrative than this. Here's the press release, followed by a few more links about the Mt. Tabor Speedy Pass Through and Driver Enhancement Project.


Eminent Domain Law Put to Test Against City of New Albany

New Albany, IN (August 7, 2018) – New Albany officials are feeling the heat once again with the redevelopment of Mt. Tabor Road. The first Motion to Vacate and Set Aside Taking was filed by residents claiming the City has no legal right to claim the power of eminent domain., which is the taking of private property for public use. The Hon. Judge Terrence Cody will hear the case in the Floyd County Circuit Court on Wednesday, August 8.

You may recall that residents cried foul last January accusing the City of not following Indiana Code or policies set forth by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT). INDOT officials attended an open house hosted by the City and observed residents insisting Mayor Jeff Gahan acknowledge invalid traffic studies and that a major overhaul of the 4-way stop was excessive. The Mayor repeatedly told those in attendance to submit their concerns in writing as he was not there to answer questions. The following week, two-thirds of the project was put on hold pending future traffic studies and revised plans.

With more than twenty-five percent of the homeowners still refusing to sell the property around their homes, this first case will set a precedent for all other cases that will follow. An eminent domain complaint must state the use the plaintiff – the City of New Albany - intends to make of the property, if a right-of-way is sought, the location, general route, width, and the beginning and end points of the right-of-way. It must also detail a specific description of each piece of property to which the plaintiff alleges the benefits will accrue.

The original complaint stated the City was improving Mount Tabor Road from Grant Line Road to Charlestown Road, reconstructing approximately five thousand eight hundred ninety-nine (5,899) feet and improving the intersection of Mt. Tabor Rd. and Klerner Lane, none of which is now true. The City’s current plan is to reconstruct Mt. Tabor Rd. from Grant Line Rd. to 200 feet West of Klerner Lane.

The hearing will be held at 11 a.m. in room number 413 of the fourth floor of the City County Building, 311 Hauss Square, New Albany, Indiana.

---

For all labels with Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project, click here. Following are recent highlights.

Gahan Money Machine: The Beam, Longest and Neff firm takes its turn at the wheel of the mayor's gravy train.

The city's newly ordained symbol is an anchor buried beneath the Ohio River mud flats, but there are no brakes on the Gahan Campaign Finance Express.

The Jeopardy! answer: "It's why we're here."

The Jeopardy! question: "How important is campaign finance to Mayor Jeff Gahan?"

And here.

That's why he's here: Lumberjack-in-chief Jeff Gahan's deforestation of Mt. Tabor Road begins.

The clearcut was delayed a couple of weeks, but the jollies were not to be denied.

And finally here.

Hemorrhaging votes, an increasingly disoriented Deaf Gahan sidesteps Mt. Tabor-Klerner intersection ... for now.

In a stunning roundabout turnabout, Deaf Gahan dispatched his Minister of Engineering to this morning's meeting of the Board of Public Works and Safety, and with little fanfare, erased his previous line in the sand -- and drew a new one to the west of the intersection of Mt. Tabor Road and Klerner Lane.

Dant Chesser hits the Gahan ATM and solves the oligarchs' RDA funding puzzle.

Cue the testimonial ...

The friendly people at Bank of Gahan are happy to help you with financial planning. 

Of course, if you have to ask about interest payments, you probably can't afford them, but Bank of Gahan specializes in easy payment plans with maximum liquidity of campaign finance collateral. 

Bank of Gahan has funded projects large and small, from aquatic centers without a paper trail to the serial harassment of street department employees. 

Bank of Gahan's motto is a promise to you: "It's why we're here."

Enjoy tonight's special feature, presented by Mayor Jeff Gahan and the Bank of Gahan: "Wendy, Make Up Your Mind" (and do your RDA banking with us).



The story begins in a back room ...

Regional Development Authority needs funding before it can plan projects, by Danielle Grady (Omnibus Tom May)

JEFFERSONVILLE — Project ideas at the fifth meeting for Southern Indiana’s Regional Development Authority ranged from region-wide rural internet access to a $40 million road from the Clark Regional Airport to River Ridge Commerce Center.

But the Our Southern Indiana RDA, which was formed at the beginning of the year to facilitate economic development projects in Clark, Floyd, Scott, Washington and Jefferson counties, isn’t in a position to start adopting any of those suggestions. Yet.

Before any formal project ideas are sent to the state for its consideration, funding is needed to create a plan.

Seems the pillars are skint, so they're spending their time brainstorming.

Southern Indiana’s RDA has made positive progress in its first four months, said Dana Huber, the vice president of marketing and public relations at Huber’s Orchard and Winery and Clark County’s representative on the development authority’s board of directors. (Each participating county has its own advocate on the board).

Due to a lack of funding, however, the board has been limited to enacting processes and procedures and — as its members did on Monday in the Clark County Courthouse’s council chambers — discussing ideas that they might want to focus on when planning time finally comes around. That’s been a little challenging at times for the board, which is comprised of business leaders who are used to attaching to ideas and running with them immediately, said Huber. But it hasn’t been overwhelmingly difficult.

“I think the progress has been good,” Huber said. “I think we will feel better, the RDA team will feel better, once we’ve attached our brand to a timeline and some potential projects that will [make an] impact.”

The RDA does know that it wants its projects to impact the region — not just one city or county.

So, naturally, the first round of ideas are restricted (yet again) to Clark County, and reference no clue whatever that truly "regional" needs might just involve things like getting workers to jobs without always having to drive.

The RDA also invited Clark County Commissioners President Jack Coffman to propose a few projects that would benefit the area at the Monday meeting. His suggestions included the aforementioned internet access and road to the airport, as well as the heavy haul road connecting River Ridge, Interstate 265 and the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville.

The question can't be evaded: If the RDAs are to be useful at all, and if needs truly are regional, is there any chance that the same old suspects might be compelled to think in a future tense, as a part from One Southern Indiana's Econ Dev 101 template?

Come to Stump City: Yet another artlessly staged photo purports to show that Deaf Gahan really cares about trees. Problem is, history suggests otherwise.

No single administration in recent memory has felled as many trees as Team Gahan.

No single governing clique in recent memory has failed as often as Gahan's when it comes to making trees a genuine priority during this time of urban heat island awareness.

No single Republican in recent memory has filled as many ground-down stump holes for a Democratic mayor with such enthusiasm as David Barksdale.

No single Tree Board in recent memory has fizzled for so long resisting a legitimate request for meeting minutes (mine dates to May of 2016), although it must be conceded that Bob Caesar holds the record for sheer longevity insofar as refusing to divulge information to taxpayers requesting it.

The following randomly arranged photos depict some of the highlights of Gahan's clear-cutting fetish these past six years. How much more of this strange "love" can the city's tree canopy withstand?

And every now and then, he just pretends.

It doesn't convince anyone.

Previously (August 2017):

Team Gahan has clear-cut virtually the entire city, so it's the perfect time to begin pretending the junta cares about trees.

VIDEO: "That's why we're here," Gahan flails amid a pack of lies in this classic footage from last night's Mt. Tabor project meeting.

Thanks to whomever posted this video at YouTube.

There's a reason why the forever agoraphobic Jeff Gahan's handlers keep him secured in the bunker, and it's because the moment any public scenario strays from the script, he cannot improvise. The more he tries, the worse it gets -- and the angrier he becomes.

In this video, observe his petulance escalate with each "that's why we're here," until he's demanding to know why citizens aren't listening to him, even as he insists his Potemkin facade of a meeting was to prove he's listening.


Chins up, Mt. Taborites. Your comments may be "unlikely" to produce change, but in 2019, your votes will help forcibly detach Jeff Gahan from the public teat.

Until the past couple of days, I felt sorry for Larry Summers. Sadly, it's time to get past this, and to get started.

#FireGahan2019

Chins up, Mt. Taborites. Your comments may be "unlikely" to produce change, but in 2019, your votes will help forcibly detach Jeff Gahan from the public teat.

As an aside, has anyone else noticed how short John Rosenbarger's leash has become?

Any time the former Rasputin of Redevelopment becomes part of the public record, city officials hurriedly reel him back in, panic-stricken, as though they're actually aware of Pinocchio's chart-busting toxicity quotient.

Why not retire Rosenbarger -- or does he have copies of the same photos Coffey keeps in a safe deposit box at Birdseye Bank & Trust?

To the overarching point: If one plans for farce and debacle, these are the likely outcomes.

Jeff Gahan does not react maturely to being challenged, and when he is, expect scorched earth. It isn't enough for his opponents to lose. They must be ritualistically and publicly demeaned and humiliated, as with last night's shambolic "public information" meeting.

To his weird sort of credit, city engineer Larry Summers -- pushed to the front to take eyes off Rosenbarger's sneering depravity -- doesn't even try to lie (underlined in the passage below). By Team Gahan standards, this constitutes heroic virtue, and the newspaper's reporter helpfully records every word.

Last night's public information spoonfeeding gave Gahan's functionaries the opportunity to taunt the rubes who stand in the way of auto-centric enrichment. You don't know what's best for your neighborhood.

Dear Leader does. but remember that paybacks are hell -- and 2019 draws ever closer.

Residents voice opinions at Mount Tabor Road public info session, by Danielle Grady (That Jeffersonville Newspaper)

Comments 'highly unlikely' to produce change

NEW ALBANY — A group of New Albany residents got what they had been asking for on Tuesday: another chance for public comment on the reconstruction of Mount Tabor Road. But responses were mixed on whether residents thought the information session would result in change ...

 ... INDOT told the city that it should complete an additional information document and involve the public with its plans again in order to become NEPA complaint, which is a requirement for federally funded projects.

The city could have just completed a memo to file for the public, said Larry Summers, New Albany’s city engineer, but because of the amount of public outreach to INDOT, the department recommended a full information session.

While the city will be taking the public comments made at the meeting, looking over them and submitting them to INDOT with their information document, Summers said it was “highly unlikely” that there would be any changes made to the city’s plan for Mount Tabor Road. Instead, the meeting was more about informing the public about the project’s final details.

“I mean, the city is always looking to hear public comments, but at this point, we’re letting the project in February so the plans are final,” Summers said.

He did add that if there was something “substantial” brought up, the city could make a change.

"City of New Albany Under Fire Amid Accusations of Ignoring INDOT Policies" as Transparency for Mount Tabor group issues scathing press release.

Previously: Here are the questions you can ask at Tuesday evening's meeting about the Mt. Tabor Deforestation and Auto Enrichment Project.

We've just received this press release from Transparency for Mt. Tabor. Take note of tonight's meeting, and best of luck to the insurgents.

---

City of New Albany Under Fire Amid Accusations of Ignoring INDOT Policies

Contact: Transparency for Mount Tabor - Scott Whalen or Kelly Feiock 

New Albany, IN (January 2, 2018) – Another large crowd is expected at the public meeting tonight hosted by the City of New Albany to unveil yet another plan for the Mount Tabor Road Redevelopment Project. The project’s initial goal was to correct erosion problems running along the north side of the road into the creek below. Revisions to the plans will be displayed at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in New Albany at 7 pm.

In addition to correcting the erosion problems, the original plan in 2013 called for scrapping the current 4-way stop with stop signs and inserting a roundabout into an area that a proper roundabout would not fit. More than 300 residents angrily voiced their opposition to this idea, begging the city to fix the erosion and leave the rest of the road alone.

A few months later Mayor Jeff Gahan reversed his stance, visiting three of the homes on Christmas Eve, which are located on the intersection of Mount Tabor and Klerner Lane, personally telling the residents that his official response to the public hearing and the Categorical Exclusion (CE) was that the intersection would remain the same. It was possible to change to a traffic signal in the future, but it would be in a separate project if or when that happened. He followed up with mailing a letter to all affected residents stating “I recently decided to eliminate the roundabout from the project. The plan is now to retain the 4-way stop.” Gahan continued by saying “This decision was based upon the public comments and concerns received from the surrounding neighborhoods.”

Fast forward three years to June 2016. Residents begin receiving letters notifying them the project was moving forward, appraisers would be visiting homes and acquisition offers to buy land would follow soon after. Yet, when the Right of Way (ROW) Agents presented the offers to residents, they showed plans marked “preliminary.” And when residents asked for a copy of the plans that actually said “Final,” they learned the plans were not yet final. Gossip swirled as neighbors began to speculate that the City of New Albany was going to change the plans again.

Unable to obtain answers from Gahan’s employees, residents turned to INDOT for answers, as INDOT must sign off any federally-funded projects. In December 2016 INDOT confirmed the 4-way stop was now to become a signalized light, and the two lanes of traffic would now insert a left turn lane. Once again residents are furious with Team Gahan. Some had already signed contracts selling portions of their land, believing the atmosphere of a 4-way stop and two lanes of traffic would remain the same. Others, who refused to sign fearing the neighborhood was about to change, have been sued and their land obtained via eminent domain. Approximately 50% of the residents are refusing to give in, and are now going to jury trial against the city.

Resident Scott Whalen kept questioning INDOT officials about policies, and asked shouldn’t residents have seen the final plans before properties were appraised, contracts signed or eminent domain granted? How can damages be calculated when the appraiser doesn’t know the end result? Finally, INDOT agreed that the residents were to be notified of the changes. Residents didn’t just want to know about the changes – they want to know how INDOT signed off on a major change of scope, and not be aware that the residents didn’t know.

Lack of communication has been an ongoing issue between city officials, INDOT and residents. INDOT requires the city mail surveys to residents for a noise analysis – but the surveys were never mailed. INDOT requires any reasonable requests be considered during negotiations - but the ROW agent didn’t tell the city about the requests. The city told INDOT that an increase in traffic warranted the change from a 4-way stop to a traffic signal – but it didn’t tell INDOT that the two traffic analysis it ordered were done when parallel streets were closed and traffic was rerouted though Mount Tabor Road. In fact, a traffic study has never been conducted while all roads are open and no traffic rerouted, so there is no base line as to the average daily amount of cars to travel Mount Tabor Road.

The last straw came when residents received a letter from the city stating trees were to be cut down along Mount Tabor Road, beginning tomorrow, January 3. With so many questions and no answers, the issues have escalated to state officials who will be discussing the project today prior to the public meeting. State Representative Ed Clere plans to speak with INDOT Commissioner Joe McGuinness with hopes that INDOT will finally become accountable for the project that it approved, yet doesn’t know anything about.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help is located at 1752 Scheller Lane, New Albany, IN 47150. The public is encouraged to bring written comments or questions they would like answered and filed on public record with INDOT.

Here are the questions you can ask at Tuesday evening's meeting about the Mt. Tabor Deforestation and Auto Enrichment Project.

There's an important meeting on Tuesday night with regard to the grandiloquently (read: "inaccurately") titled Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project.

December 22:
Comments on the pre-determined Mt. Tabor deforestation and auto enrichment outcome can be given on Jan. 2 at 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church (1752 Scheller Lane).

December 28
Team Gahan swears its engineering contractor will listen to your comments about the Mt. Tabor deforestation project at the mere formality on January 2.


Kelly Feiock is one of the neighborhood community leaders involved with reformatting the malign Rosenbargerization of the project, and she made this comment on our post of the 28th.

It's important to note that residents may write down specific questions they have but New Albany refuses to answer. The City and engineers must answer each question in writing and submit to INDOT.

Written questions and comments may be given to the engineers of Beam, Longest and Neff at the meeting Tuesday, or if residents will not be able to attend the meeting the letters may be sent to the engineers within 7 days of the meeting:

Brian Shaw
c/o Beam, Longest and Neff
8126 Castleton Road
Indianapolis, IN 46250
bshaw@b-l-n.com

Following are a few examples of the points being made to City Hall and INDOT by those neighborhood residents contesting the project's parameters.

Judging by the sheer size of the mailing list, my guess is most residents who need this information already have received it, and so I've edited it into bullet points. If you would like to peruse the details, let me know and I can forward the e-mail I received.

Examples of deficiencies to share with INDOT:

1. Indiana Department of Transportation Traffic Noise Analysis Procedure was not followed.
2. Acquisition of real property for federal and federal aid projects was not followed.
3. The City and its engineers claimed an increase in traffic, yet failed to provide a reasonable and valid traffic analysis warranting the replacement of the current 4-way stop with a signalized intersection.

Point #3 has its own list of conceivable questions.

• Instead of saying "I don’t think there is enough traffic on Mount Tabor Road to warrant a traffic signal," ask them how many cars travel Mount Tabor Road on a daily basis now that Rainbow Drive and McDonald Lane are open, and no traffic is being rerouted on Mount Tabor.
• Ask them to provide the document stating that this project requires sidewalks on both sides of the road.
• Ask them to provide the document stating that the sidewalks must be five feet wide.
• Ask them for the documentation stating the five foot grass buffers improve the safety of pedestrians.
• Ask them for a detailed planned to replace the trees that were cut down.
• Ask them to provide a detailed plan of replacing the trees that were cut down…. How many? What kind? How big?
• Ask them who they hired to maintain the grass and sidewalks in the new ROW.
• Ask them who should we call if the snow plow hasn’t cleared the snow in the ROW blocking access to our driveway.
• Ask them what money is being used as the 20% local match.

Team Gahan's doctrine of inflated self-importance typically causes it to react harshly to grassroots activism. As such, it's crucial for concerned citizens to keep pushing and attend this meeting. NAC hopes to be able to swing by and observe.

Team Gahan swears its engineering contractor will listen to your comments about the Mt. Tabor deforestation project at the mere formality on January 2.

Taken BEFORE Gahan's NAHA putsch.

Way back on December 22, we provided fresh news (thanks S) about an unexpected chance for the public to play its part in fulfilling the city's legal obligations, so the Mt. Tabor Deforestation and Campaign Finance Enrichment Project might finally begin.

Comments on the pre-determined Mt. Tabor deforestation and auto enrichment outcome can be given on Jan. 2 at 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church (1752 Scheller Lane).

The Bookseller immediately issued an appropriate reminder.

As you well know, a "public information meeting" as run by this administration will not allow for any public comments by the citizenry. These are so far removed from "public hearings" as to be from different planets. I hope you will use your platform to remind the mice how such meetings go - first with divide and conquer breakouts where one might ask a question of a single official, but no opportunity to publicly address concerns.

Five whole days later, the News and Tribune somehow meandered around to the story, including an half-assertion this meeting will be different; this time around, there'll be some down-home, old-school listening going on.

Uh huh. Does anyone have a grain of salt the size of size of Jeff Gahan's ego?

Meeting scheduled to discuss Mount Tabor Road project, by Chris Morris

NEW ALBANY — It looks like residents will once again have an opportunity to voice their opinion on the proposed changes and improvements to Mount Tabor Road coming in 2018 ...

... Because the project is federally funded, the city must follow the National Environmental Policy Act. According to Indiana Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Manning, the approved environmental document shows the project will involve a four-way stop, which is what exists now as previously reported by the News and Tribune. INDOT reviewed documents submitted by the consultant at the request of Mount Tabor Road and Klerner Lane residents. State officials discovered that while the city changed the intersection design, the NEPA documents don't reflect this change ...

... At the meeting representatives from the engineering design firm Beam, Longest and Neff, LLC will be available to answer questions from concerned residents.

This is amazing.

It's been so long (2013) since this project was minted that it actually predates the time of HWC Engineering receiving all such contracts. Let's hope Beam, Longest and Neff have been updated on cash-stuffed envelope protocol since David Duggins hit the pay-packet lottery at the New Albany Housing Authority.

Hilariously, although probably inadvertently, Morris recycled previous thoughts from John "Pinocchio" Rosenbarger, still merrily denying culpability in ignoring this "final public hearing" requirement, and still just as happily suckling on the government's teat after all these long, wasted years.

John Rosenbarger, New Albany Public Works projects supervisor, said in a previous interview the city intends to build a signal as planned. He thinks a signal will work best at that location and will improve traffic flow. "You can time signals ... You can control flow with a signal. You can't with a four-way stop," he said.

As an aside, it's instructive to understand that deep down inside, Wile E. Rosenberger has his own embittered and self-serving complaint, which might be explained like this: he's chronically under-appreciated.

Such a tragedy.

It seems that from the start of Rosenbarger's career as veritable Rasputin of Redevelopment, those politicians for whom he has toiled, and the voters who placed them in office, both are irretrievably stupid.

They simply have not ever grasped the sheer grandeur of Rosenbarger's professional essence, and because of this, while he forever and always has possessed the very best and most brilliant Wile E. solution to any problem, seldom was he allowed to bring these solutions to bear -- because, had he undertaken to argue for what is correct from a sense of deep and abiding principle, the single worst outcome of all might have occurred.

This being that Rosenbarger might have been fired -- sacked, cashiered, terminated, made redundant, discharged, tossed, dismissed, axed, given a pink slip, kicked out and sent packing.

In turn, this means that the only deep and abiding principle Rosenbarger ever possessed was personal job security. If you're not already hugging a commode in revulsion, there's more here: Ranting on John Rosenbarger's fundamental contradictions in the aftermath of an atrocious day in the neighborhood.

#FireGahan2019
#FireHimToo

Comments on the pre-determined Mt. Tabor deforestation and auto enrichment outcome can be given on Jan. 2 at 7:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church (1752 Scheller Lane).

The Green Mouse received a message.

It looks like the city is posting the notice for the Mt. Tabor project today - they are trying to skirt open public comments again. They are also cutting out half of the project citing money issues. Maybe if they would leave the intersection alone, they could do their sidewalks all the way.

Indeed. I don't suppose any of this will prevent the deforestation slated to begin the following day.

Gahan Doublespeak Blues (Husqvarna Mix): Say goodbye to your trees, Mt. Tabor Road residents, because it's time again to "improve the tree canopy" by flattening a few hundred of them.

Egg meets Pinocchio Rosenbarger's scowling visage as city delays Mt. Tabor clear-cutting until January 3.

Here's the latest ultimatum.

Source: News and Tribune
Category: Public Notices
Published Date: December 22, 2017

Notice Details

Notice of Public Information Meeting 

The City of New Albany will hold a public information meeting on Tuesday January 2, 2018 at 7:00 p.m. for the reconstruction of Mt. Tabor Road between Grant Line Road and Charlestown Road. The public information meeting will be held in Wagner Hall at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, located at 1752 Scheller Lane, New Albany, Indiana. 

The purpose of the public information meeting is to present additional information on the Klerner Lane and Mt. Tabor Road intersection, development of long-term slope stability solutions and overall project limits. The presentation will afford interested persons an opportunity to become better informed and provide written comments. 

The purpose of the project is to reconstruct Mt. Tabor Road between Grant Line Road and Charlestown Road, implement intersection improvements at Klerner Lane, construct curbs and gutters for storm water control, and provide pedestrian pathways. The total project length is approximately 1.1 miles and follows the existing horizontal alignment of Mt. Tabor Road from Grant Line Road to Charlestown Road. 

At the Klerner Lane and Mt. Tabor Road intersection, a four -way stop controlled intersection was proposed. As part of the final design, the four way stop controlled intersection was revised to a signal controlled intersection, based on a formal Traffic Signal Warrant Study and Capacity Analysis that was completed. 

In addition, as part of the final design the project limits were revised to more closely match the allocated construction funding. Final plans were developed to reconstruct Mt Tabor Road from Grant Line Road to approximately 200 feet past the proposed signalized intersection with Klerner Lane (Project 1). The remainder of the project from 200 feet past Klerner Lane to Charlestown Road is now anticipated to be constructed in a future project (Project 2). 

Written comments will be accepted at the public information meeting and for seven (7) days after the public information meeting is held. Representatives from the engineering design firm, Beam, Longest and Neff, LLC, will be available to address questions. In accordance with the "Americans With Disabilities Act", if you have a disability for which the City of New Albany needs to provide accommodations, please call Mr. Brian Shaw, of Beam, Longest and Neff, LLC at (317) 849-5832, or send an email to bshaw@b-l-n.com by December 29, 2017.