Bleak houses, outhouses and soused Green Mouses.

Look -- it's the annual love note from the troglodyte who isn't a man, but plays one on her blog. In the spirit of the season: Right back at you, Ms. Denhart; please don't choke on your ... Gucci.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM OUR HOME TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH ...

Erika Denhart rejects walkability, injects Speckophobia and expectorates noxious projectiles.

Rather than link you to Erika's unkempt litter box, from whence various disordered personality viruses lurk and the stench of unfiltered Chesterfields send you running for a handy Febreze, I'll merely reprint all of it right here.

For those newbies just tuning into the chronic illiteracy fest that is New Albany, suddenly trendy or otherwise, Freedom of Speech is a production written, produced, directed and oozed by a perpetually disgruntled woman named Vicki Denhart, who in it plays a role of her inspired creation, Erik, a bok-reading college professor who does not exist, this fiction being necessary so that her Fred Phelps-like thunder-puffs can be hurled anonymously, without comment. This, then, is "freedom" of speech, Erika-style. Occasionally she takes her show on the road to council meetings, lurching and rasping through lengthy denunciations of modernity until the nicotine fades.

Verily, cities can be defined by the persistence and oddity of its one-chord, obviously affected eccentrics. Perhaps we can name a tax after her ... after her.

Psst, officer ... looks like we have a new customer for the enchanted kingdom.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH

THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO ALL THE LITTLE PEOPLE IN NEW ALBANY. ALWAYS REMEMBER THE FREEDOM TO SPEAK NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION. WE ARE NOT GOING TO GIVE THESE FREEDOMS AWAY. NO ONE SHALL TAKE THESE RIGHTS FROM US. THE MOMENT WE BEGIN TO SEE THE PERSONAL AGENDAS IN CITY GOVERNMENT, WE SHOULD SPEAK OUT. WE NOW HAVE A VOICE. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE ON THE WAY OUR CITY GOVERNMENT OPERATES. MY PHILOSOPHY IS COMMON SENSE AND SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE, AND DOING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE DONE.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2014

DUMBEST STATEMENT WE EVER READ.....

"Won't be a traffic study" but traffic will be studied."

We really do believe Mr. Speck says whatever pops into his head without forethought at all. $75,000 is just another EASY pay check and some free beer to him.

Talk about a Conflict of Interest.

Why are they wasting $75,000 of our money when there are"more important issues" that need dealt with?

A message to Mr. Warren Nash: How do you sleep at night?

Mr. Baylor if you want a walkable city, why don't you just do us all a big favor - move and stop "bullying downtown business owners."  Several businesses have told us, they put those stupid signs up just to shut you up!

Like the bible says: "the truth shall set you free."

Aquatics bucks: This whole cost-benefit thing, and simple arithmetic?

The meat of Randy's post is a reconsideration of the numbers being floated as worthy of a banker's support for the aquatics center bond, which received its first positive council vote last Thursday.

Crippling Bond Issue Based on False Premises, by Randy Smith (The NewAlbanist)

 ... According to the newspaper of record, the Gahan administration is proceeding with plans for a $9 million aquatic center to be located at the failed site of the Camille Wright swimming pool off W. Daisy Lane.

Their professional design consultant, The Estopinal Group (and who else would you expect them to use?) says that a new outdoor facility can be expected to have 66,000 visits each year and to generate $932.000 in revenues. TEG asserts that the operating costs of the pool will not exceed $700,000 annually. Simple arithmetic yields a net revenue stream of $232,000 each year.

Oh, but that it were true.

The 6-3 vote in favor of moving forward is history. While retaining my overall doubts, I'll say that if we really must insist on defining our civic commitment to youth in terms of sports instead of brains, the greening of the squalid Hoosier Panel property makes better sense on multiple levels than the square-peg, round-hole aquatics center scenario; apart from serving as a bricks and mortar manifestation of mail order appendage enhancements in the context of the ongoing parks libido war between city and county, I fail to see the usefulness of the aquatics center.

Then again, I don't swim. The water gets in your beer, and it's plain nasty.

The most surprising aspect of last Thursday's pro-bond vote was the seeming exhaustion of the usual "no new spending" bloc. I've never seen such resignation going into a scrum; perhaps advanced age finally is taking its toll on the stalwarts. Like always, Erika Denhart rallied her troops -- and perhaps three attended. Her speech was Charlie Pride-laden boilerplate, and the vows of unceasing combat uncharacteristically hollow.

A handful of Republicans were collected, including Irv Stumler, who allowed himself to be taken down fairly easy by Dan "I'll have more of that drunken sailor expenditure, please" Coffey. Even the leather-jacketed former councilman, Steve Price, was unable to muster much of his patented oppositionist enthusiasm. Maybe they're preparing an ambush.

Until then, it would be nice to think that council persons like Scott Blair might contemplate whether the numbers really add up.

Of astroglide and gavels, circa '77.

This will make more sense if you read the thread comments here.

REWIND: Tempest in a tinhorn’s teapot (2009).

Dan Coffey has proven himself temperamentally and educationally unsuited for public office so very often that we’ve largely ceased pointing it out to readers. It simply is a given, accepted by one and all, like knowing that Dallas Cowboys fans always are obnoxious, Lite beer has no flavor, and White Castles are flatulent.

1st district voters unfortunately have acquiesced to keep Coffey in office, and by doing so, they’ve doomed themselves to persistent irrelevance. But the Wizard of Westside faces two opponents next Tuesday: Theresa Timberlake, who narrowly lost to Coffey in 2007, and Vicki Denhart, a.k.a. “Professor Eric” the masked blogger.

Reports suggest bloody, hand-to-hand, medieval warfare in the 1st district, and not unlike civil wars in isolated Asian jungles, outsiders can hear the noise and feel the earth shake when the bombs explode, but they have little clear notion of the situation within.

The following column, which was first printed in the News and Tribune on September 10, 2009, reprises the famous council meeting when Coffey, Denhart and the Publican (that’s me) collided. A year and a half ago, the copperhead defended the troglodyte’s virtue. Now, she’s gouging out his eyes.

Who will win? All I can say is, “Go Theresa.”

---

BEER MONEY: Tempest in a tinhorn’s teapot.

By ROGER BAYLOR, Local Columnist

At the September 3 city council meeting, its president remarked that he could not “in good conscious” vote for a particular ordinance.

However, Dan Coffey mustered sufficient consciousness to vote in favor of an amendment to precisely the same ordinance, but only after publicly inquiring of the city’s long-suffering clerk as to how the tally stood prior to his own decision finally being registered.

Malaprop theatrics like these matter because they violate the council’s own rules of order, which prohibit the president from joining in a discussion before first passing the gavel to a colleague, but because reticence would not suit Coffey’s view of the council president as ringmaster of a flea circus, he seldom observes protocol and frequently flaunts it. Apart from a solitary recent instance, his fellow councilpersons seem content to acquiesce in their workplace being governed by the ward heeler’s whim.

Meanwhile, members of the public – known as “taxpayers” if favored by Coffey and “them people” if not – are periodically compelled to abide by randomly applied rules, and so it was that at the meeting of August 20, during the course of departing the council chamber for more stylish digs down the street, I famously uttered a few cross words.

Last weekend, Coffey deigned to put his name on a letter to the editor of this very newspaper, attesting to his somewhat inaccurate recollections of my transgression. Ever since then, sometimes when sleeping and other times while conscious, my conscience has bothered me, though not for the reasons you might expect.

Surely no one, least of all me, likes to lose his temper, and yet it happens to all of us from time to time. There are occasions when it is inordinately difficult to maintain one’s composure, as when baseless innuendo is being peddled to a council evidently too bored or self-serving to respect the sanctity of genuine truth, primarily because baseless fabrications better fit the pre-determined prejudice of the body’s vitriolic president.

Yes, I lost my temper. Just the same, much of the remainder of Coffey’s depiction of the scene belongs on the shelf alongside “Alice in Wonderland,” or even more appropriately, “Pinocchio.”

---

Forever exaggerating, Dan Coffey would have you believe that a harmless little old lady was steamrollered by a truncheon-wielding Communist, but the woman in question is an outspoken citizen activist who, to put it mildly, is quite fluent with name-calling, mud-slinging, publishing a trash-talking blog under the pseudonym of a non-existent male college professor, and other characteristic acts of local political foreplay.

Of course, the limited pleasures of foreplay are as good as it can get with the current sitting council, because in order to reach a climax, something actually has to be finished.

In his letter, Coffey suggests that those whom he has arbitrarily judged guilty of rambunctious behavior should be held to a higher standard of accountability, seeing that among them are Tribune columnists and members of local appointed non-profit boards.

Funny, but I don’t recall the saintly Coffey deploying the same logic back in January. Here are excerpts from what I wrote at the time:

“(Mark) Cassidy came before the council and waited patiently for the opportunity to read a prepared statement and to ask a simple question: Does the current legislative aggregation have any intention of doing its Constitutional duty to draw fair electoral districts by lawfully redistricting for the first time since 1992?

“Cassidy … politely endeavored to ask this question, but Coffey … argued with Cassidy and gaveled him down.

“The story resumed … with Coffey's verbal and physical harassment of another, entirely different citizen in Studio's. There, surrounded by witnesses … Coffey initiated a heated discussion with (Jeff) Gillenwater that ended with Coffey aggressively grabbing Gillenwater by the shoulders and vowing to be ‘like a copperhead’ and to ‘strike when you least expect it.’”

---

So much for civility. How does Coffey reconcile hypocrisy of this magnitude?

More significantly, why do his somnolent council seatmates tolerate it?

Only one of them, John Gonder, possessed the intestinal fortitude in January to suggest that Coffey deserved some form of censure. The others sat and stared at the floor, and now, bizarrely – pathetically – they just can’t understand why they’re regarded as political laughingstocks by anyone who takes the time to observe them in non-action.

Me? I take my deserved lumps when erring, which is why I’ve always signed my name to everything I write -- always have, always will. Passion for the cause of civic progress and a profound inability to suffer fools at times may lead to unfortunate outbursts, which I regret. Know that if given the chance to do it over, I’d have used a different noun, though not a different modifier. Color me defiant, and unrepentant, and let the chips fall where they may.

But here’s the rub: Coffey’s breezy fiction to the contrary, this entire story isn’t at all about me, my friends or our values. It’s about the desperate concoction of a smokescreen for the ongoing failure of the Coffey Council to offer any semblance of leadership in the form of a pro-active future vision for the city of New Albany.

Coffey’s cavalier disregard for the rules of engagement is a nasty symptom of the rot within, one that is being left to fester by council persons who quite simply know better and yet do nothing. In terms of legislative achievement, Dan Coffey’s council is barely conscious.

Do any of its members still have a conscience?

Nickels and dimes for Maalox, Volume 265.

... And then Li'l Stevie scratched his head and replied, "Gee, ma, what's blogging?"

Source: http://voiceofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2011/04/open-message-to-carl-malysz.html

REWIND: Wonderfully and delightfully us (2009).

According to the Who's Pete Townshend, the legendary Keith Moon became the group's drummer very early in its career after approaching Townshend between sets, gesturing in the direction of the incumbent, and saying, "I can play better than him." He was given the chance, and proved it.

In like fashion, at one point or another, political races come to a point where comparisons are inevitable. Experience hath clearly shown that certain sitting council persons are congenital underachievers, impeding the goal of effective governance, and even if Dan Coffey and Steve Price are not my direct opponents in the primary, I see no reason to shrink from pointing out their inadequacies, as I did in this Tribune column on May 14, 2009. It bears noting that nothing has occurred in the two years since then to change the verdict.

---

BEER MONEY: Wonderfully and delightfully us.

By ROGER BAYLOR, Local Columnist

A few years ago, upon returning to her office in Louisville after a holiday, my wife noted to a co-worker that we had vacationed in Europe.

The co-worker’s reply: “Did you fly or drive?”

I’m trying to imagine a European with the equivalent of an American elementary school education making a similar comment, but I simply can’t. It’s inconceivable.

Here, it’s a recommendation for elected office.

----

Previously I’ve written about my birth as a tragically misplaced European, dropped into New Albany by a drunken stork without the saving grace of GPS. Accordingly, I retain a healthy sense of continental-style irony, something few native-bred Americans can appreciate.

It certainly helps to appreciate irony when delving into the mailbag, as in this comment recently posted on a local blog:

“I wish you well, and hope your business fails downtown.”

Anonymity always empowers malice, but oddly enough, I don’t take it personally, because this sentiment is bigger than me. More than a few local commentators sincerely hope that downtown fails, period, and given traditional political groupings, tribal intemperance, individual envy, periodic outbreaks of heartburn and their own absence of coherent alternatives, the existence of terminally spiteful unwell wishers comes as no surprise – until they’re elected to office.

Only then does the irony profusely bloom.

NABC has been building a business on the north side for more than two decades, and now we have expanded into downtown. Our plan for this expansion is calculated to provide eventual profit for the company and its owners, as well as a quantifiable boost to revitalization efforts currently underway. It’s a risk, and the investment is large by our previous standards.

So it goes that having chosen to make an investment in the betterment of downtown, we’re faced with the ironic prospect of enhancing the value of those council districts represented by New Albany’s two loudest and most vociferous opponents of progress. NABC’s new brewhouse is located in Steve Price’s fiefdom and lies two short blocks away from Dan Coffey’s.

Ironic, eh?

As purveyors of gloom, doom and decay management, perhaps it’s no surprise that neither Coffey nor Price has congratulated us, and yet their districts will benefit from the ripple effect of “progressive pints” even though NABC’s fledgling existence downtown is a mortal affront to the councilmen and their hapless acolytes, precisely because it puts the lie to their central article of faith in non-development: “No one wants to invest downtown.”

Unsurprisingly, if someone does seek to invest in downtown, obstructionists like Coffey and Price pursue policies designed to thwart it, lest the “nickel and dime” flotsam and jetsam comprising their campaign “platforms” disappear into the breeze like many empty White Castle boxes drifting like tumbleweeds down Spring Street.

Opposition to the future is all they know, and it’s the time-dishonored default for New Albany. Ironically (there’s that word again), these politics of decay comprise a platform of futility that neither political party bothers challenging in any coherent way, ever.

In turn, this gaping leadership void inevitably implies that the prime hope for progress forever lies in the ability of activists, business people and contrarians to ignore the conniving politicians, sidestep the turf battles, and invest in New Albany, anyway, perhaps for no other reason beyond a need for someone to do something – anything – positive.

To review: We elect intellectually vacant politicians who promise that nothing will change for the better.

We get exactly that.

It isn’t ironic.

Not at all.

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Many of these business people, contrarians and activists, and far fewer politicians, look forward to convening monthly at Develop New Albany’s “First Tuesday” networking gatherings.

The May edition was hosted last week by the River City Winery (321 Pearl St.; 812-945-9463; www.rivercitywinery.com/), which is preparing to open its doors full time later this summer. Evening wine sampling should be underway soon, with the owners still putting in long hours toward opening the kitchen. Call for details and opening hours before visiting, but take my word for it: When you see the job they’ve done remodeling and refurbishing the historic Baer Building, you’re going to be impressed … and thirsty.

The winery will be taking advantage of an active subculture that revels in something I’ve always jokingly referred to as “alco-tourism.” While there are other, more subtle ways of describing it, the underlying impulse is the same. Growing numbers of folks enjoy searching out small, distinctive, handcrafted libations, and they’ll go out of their way to find them.

In a planet filled to the brim with fast food franchises, the independent River City Winery will be one of a kind, attracting visitors who choose consciously to ignore the everyday chain eateries and watering holes, dining and drinking instead at locally-owned restaurants and pubs. Such is the reaction to the mass market mentality of the cookie cutter that related possibilities for profitably investing time, money and interest in niche alternatives are better placed for success than ever before. It works for bistros, wineries, cafes, coffee shops and breweries, as well as art galleries, bookstores and specialty retail businesses.

To concentrate these niche businesses in a place that had been previously undervalued, like the historic business district of a city like New Albany, is to create an atmosphere with a good chance of luring like-minded people to come and take a look.

Just don’t expect the conjoined councilmen to understand any of it. After all, their job is to prevent growth from happening.

Just as an FYI.

I know that it disappoints some blog readers when I stoop to caress the little people. If you're one of them, perhaps you'd like to stop here.

Long ago, the Tribune permitted letters to the editor with “name withheld by request," and naturally, most such letters were nasty, unforgivable personal attacks.

During the unfortunate period into the Nineties when Eddie Laduke spectacularly verified the Peter Principle by serving as the Tribune’s editor – itself a phenomenon that surely ranks as the nadir of intellectual attainment in this city – he regularly defended the practice in terms similar to those used by our spiteful troglodytes of the Noughts (paraphrased):

“But no one’s willing to call his or her boss a son of a bitch in print without an anonymity clause.”

So it goes. Time passes, the world keeps changing, but as both Laduke then and Steve Price now aptly illustrate, small provincial minds proliferate forever, and hooded personal attacks still are nowhere close to the same thing as “whistle blowing” and other such exculpatory nonsense.

What’s most interesting is the identity of the person during my formative years who taught me right from wrong in this context, because it was my father who was invariably outraged when one of those “name withheld” letters appeared – even if he agreed with the particular sentiments expressed.

If he was feeling okay with the world, the anonymite was simply a “coward,” but if he’d been having a hard day, the full repertoire of colorful adjectives and adverbs gleaned from three years’ service in the Marine Corps in WWII would be unleashed on the offender. The message (expletives deleted) my dad gave me never varied: If you’re not man enough to stand behind it, then keep your mouth shut.

It is a lesson I’ve not forgotten, and so anyone reading this who actually knew my father personally, and who really thinks he’d be “rolling in his grave” at the way his son conducts his life and work – anyone whose pen name throughout somehow remains “anonymous” – is so utterly allergic to irony that he or she is beyond redemption. Lies are another matter, but I think you get my drift.

I’ll give you a tip, anonymous: Keep some of your powder dry, because next week, your blood pressure’s going up. Way, way up. Have a warm, sunny weekend. Time to break out the biking shorts, don’t you think?

Wheee! Bike lanes, redistricting and commentary from the city council's A#1 barbecued bologna vendor.

Tribune reporter Daniel Suddeath returns from his holiday to the first of two big stories.

CHANGING LANES: Section of Spring Street now featuring bike paths, two lanes

Spring Street is a little bit safer for cyclists, as Mayor Doug England confirmed Wednesday bike lanes will be finished along the New Albany route this week ...

... The way it looks right now, the lane changes are confusing, City Council President Dan Coffey said. He feels the bike lanes were added to appease a certain segment of New Albany. “The mayor is going to do anything he can to help the progressives out because he figures they’re going to help get him re-elected,” Coffey said.

Suddeath then turns to story number two, an old saw back in the news:

2007 redistricting plan used for new city boundaries

A few precincts have been shuffled, but there’s still plenty of controversy surrounding a redistricting ordinance that’s being used to file New Albany’s voting boundaries.

Floyd County Clerk Linda Moeller announced the changes Wednesday, as six New Albany precincts have been moved as ordered in a December 2007 City Council ordinance. In a news release, Moeller stated the Floyd County Election Board had to request the changes through the Statewide Voter Registration System, or SVRS, in Indianapolis.

Unfortunately for Suddeath, he seems to have spent quite a lot of time on the phone with Coffey, who is capable of being just as, er, "creative" with facts when it comes to counting voters as he is when chasing bicyclists on his big blue tricycle.

“The council gave this group an opportunity, they actually drew their own map, but they had no support from the public and no support from the council,” Coffey said.

Seems to me that our Cappuccino is becoming unsettled. Wonder why?