COVID 19, HIZZONER 1: If Gahan’s willing to meet with COUNTY officials, the pandemic panic’s already started.

“It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.”
— Nikolai Gogol

Given that Mayor Jeff Gahan has spent the past eight years refusing to cooperate with Floyd County government, are the city's preparations for an influenza outbreak the same as Dr. Tom's or different?

Does this mean our COVID czar will be Bob Caesar, seeing as he took a CPR class once? After all, his POLITICS are impeccable.

Or maybe HWC Engineering has a medical wing. Enquiring minds ... at any rate, Gahan's propaganda department released a statement. There's just one question: What does CDC stand for?

We're guessing "campaign depository cash."

GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 24 January 2020.

As the topic of New Agony City Hall's first web site post in over a month, Team Gahan chose to exalt pure politics to the exclusion of numerous topics of relevance on the part of the majority of the populace, those not occupying seats on the Floyd County Democratic Party's fix-stays-in central committee.

City of New Albany Appeals to Indiana Supreme Court to Resolve Former Floyd County Commissioners’ Breach of Longstanding Property Agreement

Jeff Gahan's epitaph? It will be "He Kept Us Apart" -- from half our government, and I'm not talking about Republicans ... although Gahan is.

Speaking of the GOP, we have a winner in the contest to replace Billy Stewart as county commissioner.

The Floyd County Republican Party has selected the newest member of the Floyd County Commissioners. On Thursday, a caucus was held at the Calumet Club in New Albany to hear from potential appointees. Out of the six who tossed their hats into the ring for the District 3 seat, the caucus ultimately landed on Tim Kamer. Kamer will take the place of Billy Stewart, who resigned from his post as president of the commissioners in December to expand his role at Hofmann USA.

Meanwhile the NewsBune awakened Chris Morris to perform a professional eulogy for Susan Orth, who is retiring as a judge. Predictably, Morris sought the viewpoint of Democratic party chairman Adam Dickey, who is at least as familiar with the concept of "jurisprudence" as Mitch McConnell.

Is this vacancy the one Matt Lorch has endured abuse from his own political party for the past five years in order to be anointed for? Only the shadow knows, but so far, Shane isn't talking.

There were all kinds of local sporting events this week. Those don't matter at all, so we'll ignore them. Of greater relevance is the Board of Works picking favorites when it comes to downtown street closures.

ASK THE BORED: Is consistency among BOW's mandates when it debates street closings?

On Monday there was a merchant meeting.

The meeting lasted an hour, during which there was no mention whatever of the impending (2021) Sherman Minton Bridge repair-mandated adjustments -- lane and ramp closures and the like -- that stand to have a disruptive impact on downtown specifically, and in more general terms the city as a whole. Does Team Gahan have the latest in a long series of top secret plans reserved for the 11th Hour? If not, or even if so, shouldn't this coping strategy be something we're openly planning for? Or is participatory "infrastructure" of this sort simply not a priority in Nawbany, lest real people become involved?

We've said it before, so to repeat: The only bridge repair disruption "plan" Team Gahan possesses at present involves amassing propaganda in order to blame Republicans for it.

Finally, a tip of the hat to restaurateur Ian Hall. Until you've poured yourself into birthing an independent local business, done all you can to nurture it, then be compelled to face reality and euthanize your own creation, you simply cannot grasp how hard it was for Ian to make this video. There is much to be learned from any such decision. That doesn't mean it's easy

VIDEO: Longboard's Taco & Tiki has closed, but Ian Hall has good news, too.

ON THE AVENUES: For Deaf Gahan and the Reisz Five, their luxury city hall will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

ON THE AVENUES: For Deaf Gahan and the Reisz Five, their luxury city hall will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.”
-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

But enough about Team Gahan’s cynical manipulation of David Barksdale -- and the latter's eagerness to be exploited. In the case of the Reisz Elephant, those of us opposing this wasteful boondoggle of the vanities lost the battle, but we may be winning the war.

A Pyrrhic (PEER-ick) victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has also taken a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement.

For once, allow me just a moment to give ourselves a pat on the collective back. The broad outlines of an anti-anchor electoral coalition in 2019 increasingly are becoming visible. With each of Gahan’s grandiose and self-referential expenditures, the disgruntlement spreads.

The city’s lofty elites are over-confident, and the governing clique suffers from profound “institutional inbreeding.” The louder Gahan’s boasting becomes, and the greater his posturing, the more threadbare his personality cult’s clothing.

It’s true that Pinocchio Jeff will have pots of money in 2019, but the successful mobilization of Reisz refuseniks convinces me that we’re putting together a solid network for communication and cooperation.

And, to be blunt, during the 47 days that elapsed between the two city council votes on the Reisz Elephant, this blog performed most of the duties of the local “newspaper of record” as they pertain to the critical importance of the Fourth Estate.

The fact of the matter is that democracy requires informed citizens. No governing body can be expected to operate well without knowledge of the issues on which it is to rule, and rule by the people entails that the people should be informed. In a representative democracy, the role of the press is twofold: it both informs citizens and sets up a feedback loop between the government and voters. The press makes the actions of the government known to the public, and voters who disapprove of current trends in policy can take corrective action in the next election. Without the press, the feedback loop is broken and the government is no longer accountable to the people. The press is therefore of the utmost importance in a representative democracy.

To be sure, the Green Mouse and I had lots and lots of help, and thanks are owed to everyone who tipped, tattled and took it upon themselves to spread the word.

Sadly, once again the News and Tribune was AWOL. Of course, immediately after the Reisz Five rammed the mayor’s fix into place, News and Tribune publisher Bill Hansen emerged from the shadows to congratulate himself and the newspaper for being so awesome.

If you aren’t one of those salty newspaper pros of which I write, you won’t get it. You won’t understand that in spite of enduring years of furloughs and low wages, reporters still put their heads down and plow through the muck and the mire to bring you, our readers, information you need — and should want — to know.

If so, then why has the word “Keeneland” been ubiquitous on so many local lips these past few days? It didn’t originate at the N & T, did it? Why were citizens quoting a lowly blog, and not the newspaper? Why were insiders on both sides of the issue sending NA Confidential those e-mails, and not Chris Morris?

Is it time yet for another hard-hitting, "salty" Cooking School?

Just one missed opportunity proves the point. Recalling that a considerable part of Team Gahan’s case to “save” the Reisz building pivoted on the former property owner’s villainy in rendering a presumably valuable historic structure into such a woeful state of “neglect,” “dilapidation” and “blight,” to my knowledge not a single employee of the newspaper ever once asked Schmitt Furniture why it had been a poor steward -- or how it came to be bailed out and rewarded by the city for its refusal to cooperate with the sort of building maintenance codes that might have prevented the decay.

These being codes enforced only variably, anyway. Has the newspaper ever investigated the disappearance of Jeff Gahan’s rental property inspection promise?

In which wing of the down-low bunker is this forgotten vow cowering?

Sadly, the community pillars and the well-connected always get their playthings and golden parachutes, even as poor folks over at the housing authority are threatened with fundamental terror borne of demolitions as fetishized by a C-minus mayor who hasn’t read a book since high school, but fancies himself a Grade-A social engineer.

Jeff Gahan’s $10 million (and rising) Reisz Elephant crusade on behalf of Government Lives Matter is misguided and will be expensive, but it’s also a valuable litmus test preceding next year’s potentially curative elections. The cool kids got their “wants” -- and the rest of us have been gifted with an opportunity to kick the clique to the anchor-festooned curb in 2019.

The momentum is ours. Firing Gahan now rates as a “need.” Let’s get to work.

---

In the run-up to formal approval of the city hall relocation, a defender of the mayor accused me of “making this situation political.”

I was shocked -- not because a grubby sycophant disagreed with me, but that he’s not even a job holder drawn from the mayor’s family tree or his jamboree of toadies.

What, a $10 million mayoral self-empowerment project, political?

Hmm, ya think so?

If anyone can determine a single aspect of the Reisz Elephant saga that hasn’t been political, let me know and I’ll buy you a beer on opening night at Pints & Union.

Actually every last human being involved with the Reisz Elephant city hall relocation debate has been playing politics non-stop, whether behind closed doors (always Gahan’s default preference, mirroring his agoraphobia and revealing eroded social skills), or openly in the clear light of day, as here at the blog, or during Dan Coffey’s do-it-yourself public meeting, a gathering made necessary precisely because of Team Gahan’s fix-is-in, shadowy reticence.

Hypocrisy aside, it’s all politics, all the time, and what the mayor's jockstrap handlers really are trying to say to us is that politics must be reserved to the anointed politicians; if you have not been elected, appointed or purchased outright, then shut up and get out of the way.

Ignoring the most obvious of retorts -- these paragons of virtue can’t be bothered to read their own American foundational documents -- permit me to counter with my own bill of political rights, which states that every single day, although more imperatively when elected officials and their appointed bootlickers hijack the political process amid a blizzard of campaign donations, then circle the wagons and take politics to the down-low bunker, I reserve the option of using all the tools available to me to pursue alternatives and to encourage dissent.

Among these tools are my pen and word processor; powers of persuasion on the porch chatting with a neighbor; a can of spray paint, appropriate signage, periodic occupation and a march for our lives; and in short, using rhetoric, polemics and whatever it takes to get the point across when privileged insiders hack the decision-making process, and newspapers seek to make us feel good instead of telling the truth.

Sorry Bill. You’re absolutely clueless about New Gahania.

In a pinch, it’s certainly an option to “run” for something (again), but the point is that political expression isn’t reserved to office holders and their milieu.

Speaking personally, I’m more likely to “make a run” to the package store for restorative medicine, despite there being far too few shots and tall boys on the planet to dull the imbecilities of those fawning and obsequious toadies who believe we must look the other way while elected officials of Jeff Gahan’s squalid caliber pillage the commonweal at will.

Verily, January 1, 2019 cannot arrive too soon for me. Have I mentioned Nix the Fix?

---

During his stand-up routine at city council on June 21, billed as “35 Reasons I’m Better Than You,” municipal bond percentage retirement fund aggregator Shane Gibson -- who reportedly does legal work in his spare time -- twice mentioned the sum of $9 million as representing the amount the city has invested in the Floyd County Jail, and BY GAWD, Emperor Gahan has absolutely no intention of allowing the perfidious Floyd County governmental miscreants to screw us out of what’s rightfully ours.

Shortly thereafter, afforded an audience by one-fifth of the Reisz Five, I listened in amazement as each point I raised about the luxury city hall enthronement project was met by one or the other variations on a theme: “But the COUNTY’S worse.”

Yeah, but what about the COUNTY?
The COUNTY was corrupt first, you know.
How can you say that WHEN THE COUNTY?

It happens that I’ve been a lifelong opponent of merging city and county government, or “Uni-Gov,” as so many refer to it. The first half of my existence was spent in Georgetown and Floyds Knobs, the second half in New Albany, and to this day, I’m quite skeptical about the chances of uniting disparate entities.

However, these days I’m listening carefully to the case for reducing duplication and combining certain functions, and the reason I’m doing so has nothing whatever to do with any ideological consideration apart from the adolescent, all-consuming, evangelical, anti-county fervor of the Gahanites, which is causing me to recall my status as resident of both city and county, and to realize that the spitball wars between governmental entities are annoyingly childish.

I can hear it now: BUT THE COUNTY STARTED IT, ROGER.

My answer: Are you still in kindergarten, councilman? 

I’m finding it excruciatingly tedious to listen as ineffectual Democratic council creatures shamelessly alibi for their own rampant political cowardice by crying wolf, all while foaming at the mouth and wildly gesturing toward the Knobs.

They’re clearly sick in the head, and I’d phone for an ambulance, except it isn’t clear whether I’d reach the correct 9-1-1 call center.

New Albany’s DemoDisneyDixiecratic higher-ups are the problem, not the solution – and I suppose now we must toss Barksdale into the dysfunctional mix. He’s chosen to allow himself to be used amid the partisan idiocy, and if I were the Republican chairman, I’d be staging the opening sequence of the television series Branded in broad daylight at Hauss Square.

Today more than ever before, the enemy of our enemy is our friend. If we work together in the common interest of the city during the coming months, the Gahan-tagion can be eliminated in 2019, and while we couldn't stop the Reisz Elephant, the toxic waste clean-up can begin in earnest.

Thanks for reading.

#FireGahan2019

---

Recent columns:

June 28: ON THE AVENUES: Said the spider to the fly -- will you please take a slice of Reisz?

June 21: ON THE AVENUES: Government Lives Matter, so it's $10,000,000 for Gahan's luxury city hall clique enhancement. Happy dumpster diving, peasants!

June 12: ON THE AVENUES: Histrionic preservation? $8.5 million to gift Jeff Gahan with a luxury city hall "want" is simply obscene in a time of societal need.

June 7: ON THE AVENUES: Taco Bell has as much to do with "local business" as Jeff Gahan does with "quality urban design principles."

There was no column on May 31.

Donald Trump would greatly appreciate the disruptiveness of Jeff Gahan's signature Reisz Elephant.

A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is an object, building project, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered expensive but without use or value.
--- Wikipedia

Jeff Gahan's $10,000,000+ Reisz city hall proposal certainly addresses a messianic need to self-glorify in the lap of luxury, but far more importantly, it disrupts.

Since 2016, "disruption" is often used to describe Donald Trump's theory of governance. While feeding a steady diet of red meat to his core supporters, he seeks to overload the circuits toward a goal of disrupting "business (or politics) as usual," facilitating a renegotiation on his terms.

Politics in any size of pond is about power, and power is money, and so I submit that we're seeing a similar strategy of disruption in New Albany, as directed by Gahan. He intends to disrupt county government, but also New Albany's city council.

It doesn't require a PhD to see that since taking office, Gahan has seized every available opportunity to sever ties with county government. That's because Democrats are toast in the county, and at best, capable only of rearguard actions. To preserve the party's municipal system of patronage and keep the money flowing, the city power base must be fortified and walled off.

The best previous example of Gahan's instinct to secede came during his first term with an immediate (and wholly unannounced) move to split the joint parks department, inaugurating a spending spree and tripling the city's annual budgetary commitment to parks.

Of course, all those contractors and vendors donate to the mayor's campaign finance fund, don't they?

Now the time has arrived for Gahan to disrupt the arrangement by which city and county share an office building.

In due time (after I mow the damn lawn) the Green Mouse will be here to explain our theory that Gahan’s ultimate objective is to induce county government to indemnify the city to abandon its current home and move to the too-expensive-by-half Reisz Elephant.

Or, in more familiar terms: To preserve the Democratic governing clique's power, Gahan is building a wall -- and Mark Seabrook's going to pay for it.

Meanwhile, Gahan's disruption of city council became inevitable when 2018 dawned and Dan Coffey stood outside the tent, no longer under mayoral control. This meant that the potential of a Republican/Independent bloc had to be avoided immediately by detaching its weakest link, nominal Republican David Barksdale.

But Gahan's first steps toward council disruption came with the attempted kneecapping of council president Al Knable, a maneuver that seemingly failed. However, it's now clear that it was a feint, paving the way for the mayor to complete the process of isolating Barksdale from the potential opposing bloc.

As we speak, Barksdale's role in Reisz leaves him in danger of being drummed out of his chosen party. This helps Gahan municipal power consolidation, doesn't it?

We already know that Gahan's commitment to historic preservation exists only insofar as it increases his own city-versus-county power base, and by extension, as long as it bolsters his burgeoning campaign finance account. In short, Gahan doesn’t give a damn about old buildings -- and Barksdale is consumed by them. In effect, Gahan is tempting the alcoholic with a nice bottle of Kessler.

Situations like this always favor the ethics-free, self-interested cynic.

It's buildings over people, time and again, and people aren't the only entities capable of being held hostage. Last Thursday, corporate attorney Shane Gibson confirmed that we've arrived at a purely intentional ultimatum: either Reisz is rehabbed as the mayor prefers, or he'll be sure it is demolished without further discussion.

Not only has Barksdale facilitated his own captivity; now he's in Stockholm Syndrome territory.

Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity.

Concurrently and unfortunately, by embracing a position of supine obedience to Dear Leader, Barksdale and other local historic preservationists are squandering their future credibility by allowing foundational principles to be merrily co-opted by the prerequisites of Gahan's squalid, grubby political sewer.

To conclude, our elders were astute.

When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Jeff Gahan's attacks on county government stand an excellent chance of hurting the business climate in New Albany.

In my Thursday column, I reproduced a letter published in the newspaper, and in doing so I restored a paragraph that had been excised at the direction of the editor.

City hall’s relocation addresses Jeff Gahan’s pathological hatred of uni-gov. He’d secede from the county if allowed, and he’d relocate HQ to a suitably luxurious pole barn if one existed. Plainly, the aim is political preservation for Gahan and Democrats, and Reisz is just one move in a chess game to stave off power-sharing with the county.

I think the Reisz city hall maneuver has little to do with historic preservation apart from Gahan allowing David Barksdale and fellow preservationists to co-opt themselves, a fair amount to do with the imperial overlord reflection staring back at the mayor when he shaves each morning, and a great deal -- the biggest chunk of the entire machination -- about city-county relations in general and the police department in particular.

Last night when Lawyer Gibson began repeating the figure $9,000,000, saying it was how much money the city "has" in the jail, I think this was meant to convey a clue about Gahan's desire for the city to be indemnified by the county's "hospital money," as I believe Gibson referred to it -- in short, we'll secede from the county for all intents and purposes, and be paid to let the door hit us in the ass.

Gahan wants to make the split as irrevocable as humanly possible, tantamount to the division of Berlin after the wall was built, and since he has yet to perform a mayoral function in six years and six months without someone close to him being paid for it, it makes perfect sense to me that historical preservation and bogus economic development "ripple effect" promises aren't reason enough to spend $10,000,000.

Somehow, in a way as yet unfolding, he's spending your money to make his money, and what I like least about it is the rancorous tone being embraced by Gahan and his smug gang of self-satisfied sycophants.

Not one of Gahan's cliquish functionaries has a clue about indie business trends downtown, and how would they? After all, how many of the Team Gahan higher-up ever have been entrepreneurs or started their own businesses?

However, one thing cannot be denied: keep insulting county government long enough and at some point residents living outside city limits are going to conclude that these cheap shots are aimed at them.

We needn't turn to the IUS School of Corporate Hucksterism to know how important county residents are to the city in general, and for downtown in particular. They might choose to cross the Sherman Minton and head to Germantown or St. Matthews. We need them to stay on this side of the river. 

Gahan's ill-tempered jihad -- Deaf's juvenile high school pep rally recitation of "us versus them" -- can only hurt the city's economy.

Of course, his crew of bootlickers is fond of commanding NA Confidential to shut up. Perhaps for the benefit of the business community, they might benefit from a stiff dose of their own advice.

#FireGahan2019

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Trowel in hand, CM Phipps demands city-county wall.

At the April 2 city council meeting, my 3rd district councilman splashed ice-cold water on the very notion of city-county cooperation.

(Mr. Phipps) explained that he is vehemently opposed to a merger (of 9-1-1 call services) because of the horrible track record that the county has with every venture they have entered into with the city. He stated that as long as he is on the council, he is not even willing to entertain a discussion with the county on merging any type of services. He added that whether Dr. Knable intended it to or not, it did bring that issue to the forefront and he appreciates that they can be civil about it.

Filled with the caliber of satirical zeal that comes from years spent in proximity to political underachievement on the part of the councilman, the Green Mouse has learned that Councilman Phipps is set to propose a definitive solution to the problem of county government perfidy.

"I will build a great, great wall on our western and northern border, and I will have Mark Seabrook pay for that wall. Mark my words."

Of course, if Seabrook won't pay, there's always TIF.

New Albany kiddie athletics: More money than balls.

It's only a matter of time until the News and 'Bune's Chris Morris gratefully defers to his county elder political heroes on this issue, so let's instead look at the story as reported by Grace Schneider of the Courier-Journal.

New Albany mayor, Little League at odds over location of new ballpark complex

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan and the leaders of the New Albany Little League are locked in a battle over competing plans to build a new youth baseball and softball complex.

Both the city and New Albany Little League officials have released statements saying they intend to build ballfield complexes — and each is criticizing the other’s plans.

NAC co-editor Jeff Gillenwater's thoughts at Facebook mirror my own.

All the backdoor scheming to move New Albany Little League out of New Albany reflects very poorly on county government, the Little League, the new Floyd County Parks Board, and the Horseshoe Foundation. It represents some of the ugliest politics I've seen in Floyd County, every Little League parent stereotype proven true ... people who use the terms "Little League" and "economic driver" interchangeably should be banned from activities involving children.

But the issues go deeper. In a city noted for its chaotic, poorly plotted and frankly archaic street grid, one that reduces humans choosing not to travel by automobile to a degraded status as second-class citizens, the Redevelopment Commission has indicated that up to $19 million might be bonded for aquatics, soccer and Little League ball fields.

Owing to the comprehensive absence of transportation infrastructure not exclusively dependent on private cars, all of these recreation facilities, if built, will require even more auto-centric infrastructure to use than we have now ... and what we have now needs to be drastically altered.

All this money for sports, and just two years ago, didn't the departing England administration insists that the million bucks or so needed to facilitate downtown street conversions simply couldn't be found?

It becomes increasingly evident that prioritization has been removed from the gene pool of the city's political culture.

What's missing isn't money. It's balls ... and I'm not talking about the kind you fungo, either.

ON THE AVENUES: Bring it on home to me.

ON THE AVENUES: Bring it on home to me.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Earlier this summer, unexpected circumstances dictated more than the usual number of visits up there, to the ancestral homestead.

With each passage through the vicinity of Georgetown, scattered random memories would come bubbling to the surface, demanding conscious attention. Given my ruminative proclivities, the curious aspect of these thoughts was an utter paucity of nostalgia. It seems I have no desire whatever to revisit those days of old, and advanced in adulthood, no particular eagerness to live “out in the country” ever again – not that it even resembles Green Acres, Petticoat Junction or Mayberry any longer.

The home where I spent my earlier years is situated at a gradual point of demographic and socio-economic convergence, where the open countryside to the west gives way to the cookie-cutter march of suburbia as metropolitan Louisville draws ever closer to the east. It has been this way for almost forty years, the paved-over pace quickening during “good” times and the ranch-style despoliation slowing when the economy is “bad,” leaving observers pondering a state of affairs that makes it difficult to discern which economic condition is worse.

This being L’America, sprawling gentrification inevitably would have occurred in Floyd County at some point during these decades, but those of a certain age understand, even if they don’t always concede, that the direct historical impetus for numerous subdivisions and developments occupying former farmlands -- culminating with the Woods of Lafayette and that atrocious quasi-strip mine on the edge of the Knobs off of Old Hill Road -- came about back in 1975 with the advent of court-ordered busing to desegregate Louisville schools.

What followed was white flight, plain and simple, and it was sufficiently repugnant that I could grasp it even then. Commencing with my sophomore year in high school, there were numerous new faces to meet, most of them recently arrived from Kentucky, and their pace of debarkation only accelerated in the months and years to follow. Some of them became very good friends of mine, and now I realize it was at least in part because they brought with them the dreaded urban cultural contagion, which in fact I was quite eager to contract.

But what it really meant was that an influential alliance of socio-economically dominant citizens (read: the white ones) and ambitious (“greedy” being such a quaint word) property developers exerted a politically irresistible “demand” in the marketplace, one as ever functioning far less freely than polemicists might lead one to imagine, and the weight of public policy, i.e., prolific subsidies, was placed behind the emptying of cities, which were left behind to serve as preserves for the less economically advantaged, while infrastructure for a pell-mell escape into the countryside was gleefully constructed in all directions.

It is forever instructive to contrast this metastatic approach with responsible growth strategies as exercised elsewhere, and to shorten the story, it should suffice to say that once I commenced my travels in Europe in the 1980’s, and saw first-hand the value of urban milieus when they are maintained with public policies, rather than intentionally gutted by them, it had a profound effect on me.

Until those journeys abroad became possible, my thinking was inchoate, and as long as I didn’t dwell on my existential discomfort very much, simply staying put amid what remained of the Floyd County landscape generally was okay by me. After all, that’s how I had been raised, and beer had a pleasant, if temporary, dulling propensity.

Well, wasn’t one supposed to live amid acres of grass to mow and maintain, as far away from the city as could be, and then drive dozens of miles to work (usually for national and multi-national corporations), before driving back again later the same day? It seemed almost scriptural in a “don’t you dare question this lifestyle” sort of way.

Fortunately for me, experiencing the urban scene in Europe set into motion an inexorable process of erosion as pertaining to personal values and a subsequent transformation, helping me to see what cities historically had been and might yet be, and to realize that concentrated urban amenities have a greater attraction for me than dispersal into the fields and woods – not to mention being a less wasteful application of resources.

In Europe, I might be residing in a youth hostel in central Vienna, hop a bus or tram to the train station, buy an affordable train ticket, and find myself within a short walk of the fields and woods whenever the mood struck me. A monthly public transportation pass might cost the same as a month’s parking in downtown Louisville. Urban density and rural sparseness on the continent were (and are) clearly delineated, and controlled by more stringent land use regulations than we typically experience hereabouts, where creativity-deprived families enjoy entire careers carving up cornfields into strip malls constructed with balsa wood and duct tape, or naming their subdivisions for whatever natural feature was obliterated to establish them.

Of course, aesthetic deprivation makes their conceptual discombobulation and bone-dry cash flow during recessionary times even more amusing.

There has been much talk lately about the fiscal life-and-death struggle of Floyd County vs. the city of New Albany, all of which strikes me as a remixed mash-up of arguments I’ve been hearing since childhood. In my mind, these present day disputes are aftershocks, as emanating from decisions made long ago to disproportionately subsidize the suburb/exurb at the overall expense of the urban core area.

Nowadays, in the current fiscal place and time, it makes a lot more sense to intelligently reuse the urban core than to subsidize sprawl, even when the outward movement is confined by the boundaries of such a small county as ours. Perhaps implicitly recognizing this, county government apologists like to say that city and county should act as one, with economies of scale suited to the specialized needs of the suburb/exurb, rather than the freshly revitalizing urban core, and this is precisely why New Albany’s mayor has been entirely justified in his prickliness on topics ranging from parks to emergency services.

It’s too bad, then, that a persistent Blinder Bloc within an otherwise improved city council seems intent on ignoring the evidence. But that’s a discussion for another time, isn’t it?

Newspaper editorial board: Let's hold hands, drink lemonade and sing happy songs about parks funding.

Let’s see if my reading comprehension is up to snuff.

The newspaper’s long-dormant editorial board truthfully concedes the extent of county government’s abject and cynical failure to equally fund parks within the city limits, but concludes that all should be smilingly forgiven in a joyous circle jerk of suspect future unity; we need only “trust” the same entities who’ve pulled away the football countless times before, relax, and enjoy the anticipation of the next time (and there’ll be a next time) we’ll have to laboriously formulate a whole new convoluted Band-Aid of a fiscal plan to celebrate county government’s fresh new resolve to do what it was supposed to do all along, but did not, because it never was held accountable for the previous time.

If I were a Nigerian in need of outside assistance in transferring my funds, I’d direct my e-mails to the following eager and willing aides: Publisher Bill Hanson, Editor Shea Van Hoy and Assistant Editors Chris Morris and Amy Huffman-Branham.

At the city council meeting tomorrow night (May 7), apparently there will be a rare "4th reading" of G-12-05: An Ordinance Adopting Interlocal Agreement and Ordinance and Adopting Ordinance Creating a Joint New Albany-Floyd County Park and Recreation Department, as prompted by the mayor's veto. The 3rd reading passed 5-4, as did the famously controversial smoking ordinance in 2008; the latter did not return to council for a veto-busting vote requiring a sixth "yay."

This one is coming back, and owing to the emotions shrouding the parks funding discussion -- a big bundle of undifferentiated feelings posing as facts, in the vein of the newspaper's editorial -- it's easy to imagine the amount of pressure being applied toward flipping a dissenting city council person's vote. NAC believes it would be a mistake to over-ride, because this issue only so much as hints at far larger concerns unlikely to be addressed so long as these temporary patches continue to be applied. Well-meaning is nice. Future-oriented is better, don't you think?

May 5, 2012

OUR OPINION: Mayor’s veto sends wrong message

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan decided Monday to veto an ordinance passed last month that establishes a new interlocal agreement between the city and county to fund the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department.

The mayor has the power to veto ordinances passed by the New Albany City Council. But in this case, the veto stamp should have been left in his desk drawer ...

… He’s right when he says the county had not lived up to the old agreement, initially signed in the early 1990s. According to the administration, the city has paid about $2 million more to the parks department over the past five years than the county. The matter of funding the parks came up last year after the county failed to meet its obligation under the old agreement.

So, the county definitely shoulders a lot of the blame for this ongoing soap opera. But why not cooperate instead of continuing this us vs. them mentality? Why dwell on the past when steps have been made to move forward for the betterment of the residents of the city and county? We do not need this division; we need city and county officials working together to save taxpayers money and provide the best possible living conditions for the residents.

"Gahan vetoes New Albany-Floyd County parks deal."

Interestingly, Mayor Gahan is remembering the past when it comes to parks funding (and I agree we should), but his team urged us to forget the past when the topic was UEA leadership (I disagreed). County officials are coming down squarely on the side of forgetfulness, aren't they?

Gahan vetoes New Albany-Floyd County parks deal; Parks, county officials disappointed, Daniel Suddeath (RollOver PopUp Picayune)


NEW ALBANY — Mayor Jeff Gahan announced Monday he vetoed an ordinance passed in April by the New Albany City Council that established a new interlocal agreement for the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department.


The measure narrowly passed the council with a 5-4 vote April 19, as the issue has been a point of contention between the city and county ...


New Albany had paid about $2 million more toward the parks system than the county over the past five years, though the existing agreement called for the two entities to split the funding equally based on population, which has been close to even in recent years.


After months of discussion, the Floyd County Council, Floyd County Commissioners and city council approved the new deal in April which called for equal funding mechanisms to be put in place by Oct. 1.


The new agreement would be void if either side failed to meet the funding requirements, but Gahan stated Monday he vetoed the ordinance because the county had failed to honor past parks deals.


“While I vetoed this proposed agreement, we are still currently operating under an agreement which requires equalized funding based on population,” Gahan said. “The city of New Albany will continue to honor our agreements and fully fund the parks department. It is time for the county to do the same for the betterment of all Floyd County.”

To read all about the "immediate reaction of disappointment from county and parks officials," duck the pop-up, dodge the roll-overs, and visit the newspaper's enduringly annoying web site.

Nash: In the city ... which is to say, in the county.

Undeterred by his approaching ceremony, Matt continues to contribute fine weekly columns.

NASH: City vs. County, nobody wins, by Matt Nash

... In an effort to better understand the complexities of the situation of the recent New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department funding discrepancies, I have attended a couple of meetings of the Floyd County Council. The Floyd County Council is a little different animal than the New Albany City Council with different duties and responsibilities to go along with their different jurisdiction, which I am not sure that very many people understand at all.

Just wait and see what we plan to do with Valley View.

Weatherford: "Statements such as Mr. Schellenberger’s are divisive and not constructive."

He's a Republican, right? Hell, if all us city folks would just be good and REPUBLICAN, we wouldn't have to use a youth shelter at all.

Shucks.

City, county should be one big family (letter to the editor of the News and Tribune)

I wanted to express my overwhelming concern at one of the statements that I heard at the Floyd County Council meeting on April 10. During the discussion on the ordinance for the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department, elected county council member John Schellenberger stated that “city kids” were the majority in the Youth Shelter that was recently purchased and being remodeled by Floyd County.

I have lived within the city limits of New Albany since June 2009, and as far as I know I have been a resident of Floyd County the exact same amount of time. I consider myself a part of both, as I am sure that most of the population of the city of New Albany does.

In reply to Mr. Schellenberger’s statement, children are children. There should be no distinction between “city kids” and children that live outside of the city limits. The Youth Shelter may have a large percentage of children that live within the city limits, but 100 percent of those children live within Floyd County.

There was much discussion about the tension between the city council of New Albany and the county council at the same county council meeting. I have attended many city council meetings, and there is not a time that I remember that such a huge amount of time was spent on discussing the tension between the councils, not even the 911 merger.

It pleases me very much that the two councils were able to vote on the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department. This is a step forward for our community and it is going to take time and learning on both councils for the merger to be effective.

Statements such as Mr. Schellenberger’s are divisive and not constructive. I hope that the councils can continue this trend when it comes to future mergers and work on building a better community that is 100 percent Floyd County, Indiana, and the city of New Albany.

— Amy Weatherford, New Albany

Today's Tribune column: "Adaptive cooperation at 411 E. Spring St.."

Okay - no more reprints at multiple locations. I'll leave that to our state representative.

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BAYLOR: Adaptive cooperation at 411 E. Spring St.

On June 10, 2009, The Tribune reported that officials from New Albany and Floyd County are in agreement.‘Round here, this would qualify as a front-page banner headline even if their unified stance had to do with nothing more than a place to eat lunch together.