Whether DNA gets a penny, $5,000 or $100,000 from City Hall, it is obliged to be transparent about its activities and expenditures.

As the usual suspects circle the customary wagons, let's be perfectly clear.

NAC isn't lobbing Molotov cocktails at Develop New Albany just for the sport of it. Rather, I believe there are topics worthy of airing, consideration and discussion, and the fact that so few others seem interested in them only makes me more determined to ask.

Just imagine a world where all the facts were readily available, without having to fight the gatekeepers for every scrap of information. At any rate, let's go all the way back to the beginning.

It doesn't matter whether DNA gets a penny, $5,000 or $100,000 from City Hall. The fact that DNA receives funding from City Hall obliges it to be transparent about its activities and expenditures, and to answer questions about these matters from taxpayers -- even when they don't belong to the organization.

Furthermore, whether DNA gets a penny, $5,000 or $100,000 from City Hall, the organization will forever be walking a thin line as it pertains to politics, and far from constituting an exemption from scrutiny, this places an even greater burden on DNA in terms of openness.

As defined by political scientist Harold Laswell, "Politics is who gets what, when, how." The plain fact is that Jeff Gahan (or any mayor) routinely makes political decisions, and although DNA just as routinely claims to refrain from politics by virtue of its non-profit status, these claims are hypocritical and spurious far more often than not.

This is why DNA's institutional culture must be driven by its unique program of work, as defined by National Main Street's Four Points. Only in this manner can DNA produce results that justify its existence, and help to insulate it from political interference.

Of course, DNA's principals must desire operational autonomy, as opposed to courting political interference. Consequently, it isn't without reason that today's Taco Walk bears a hard look, particularly given DNA's recent fondness for touting its own "signature events." This is because National Main Street has issues with this event-centered approach.

National Main Street hopes to correct certain errant conditions.

Many Main Street programs tend to focus too much time and effort on the components of the Main Street Approach where they may feel most comfortable, and where they can have the most visible impact in a short period of time – most often, Design and Promotion. As a result, many programs report that they struggle to be recognized as serious revitalization organizations and reach key revitalization benchmarks.

In short, event-planning has become the focus of many such organizations, and this can cause them to lose focus on the bigger picture. National Main Street is on it.

As has been the case in the past, Main Streets will be encouraged to engage a wide range of local stakeholders in developing a vision of success for their downtown or neighborhood commercial districts. Main Streets will then be urged to develop cross-cutting Community Transformation Strategies that are connected to meaningful, longterm change. Progress will be measured in a variety of ways, including through economic metrics and qualitative assessment.

I cannot emphasize the importance of downtown independent business owners taking a few minutes to read these two National Main Street documents, and to consider how useful they'd be if applied to New Albany.

1 The Main Street Approach

2 The Four Point Refresh: A Primer

It should be clear that DNA's choice of signature events is itself political -- who gets what, when, and how. Who plays, and who doesn't.

Let's all eat at Israel's Delicias de Mexico Gourmet on Saturday, August 12.

Moreover, such prioritization must be viewed in the context of opportunity costs. Devoting resources to one activity probably means depriving them from another. How is this or that decision made? If City Hall provides funding to DNA, then the organization needs to do a far better job communicating the decision-making process as to who gets what, when, and how.

A few years ago, when DNA actively and publicly lobbied for farmers market expenditures to expand and make permanent the market's current home, while simultaneously denying that doing so was in any way "political," the organization wasn't just being disingenuous to the point of hypocrisy.

It also was seeking to make impossible an in-depth community dialogue about whether the current location is appropriate for anchoring (pun intended) a sporadically used farmers market when the future infill redevelopment potential of the corner of Bank and Market is so considerable.

By working to forestall a credible discussion of other options, DNA was being as political as the term can possibly be, and an opportunity has been lost. Because of this and so many other examples, the very last comment we should be hearing from anyone affiliated with DNA is that it can't or won't answer questions like these two:

What's the current level of annual City Hall support for DNA?

Of the monies collected for the Taco Walk (for example: 400 buyers at $30 per ticket is a gross of $12,000), what's the percentage to be kept by DNA?

These are perfectly legitimate questions, aren't they?

My last survey of these issues came was last August. I'm guessing these links are still topical.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016
ON THE AVENUES: There has never been a better time for an Independent Business Alliance in New Albany.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2016
ON THE AVENUES: DNA, National Main Street, the Four Points, and how it might yet be possible to get this thing right for once.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2016
From 2011 and 2015: Regaining consciousness in a city “coming” to? Or, the infamous Come to City marketing fiasco of 2011.

ON THE AVENUES: DNA, National Main Street, the Four Points, and how it might yet be possible to get this thing right for once.

ON THE AVENUES: DNA, National Main Street, the Four Points, and how it might yet be possible to get this thing right for once.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

According to my dusty e-mail records, the first manifestation of downtown “merchant mixer” meetings came in late summer of 2007 when Dr. Curtis Peters, then the co-owner of Gallery on Pearl (as well as a Vintage Fire Museum stalwart) convened a meeting at Treet’s (now Adrienne & Co.) to discuss Harvest Homecoming’s effects on downtown business owners.

I wasn’t a downtown business owner just yet; however, Bank Street Brewhouse (BSB) planning was getting under way, and it came to fruition in 2009, by which time the merchant mixer morning coffee meetings were becoming more of an established institution, albeit still quite informal.

My concurrent tenure on the boards of Develop New Albany (DNA) and the Urban Enterprise Association (UEA) ran roughly from 2008 through 2010, when I resigned from both, primarily because BSB’s newborn needs threatened to overwhelm me, but also in protest of then-mayor Doug England’s efforts to render both these entities into a captive appendage of City Hall.

The culmination of these takeover efforts came in the fall of 2011, when the Sherman Minton Bridge was closed for repairs. The story can be found reprinted here (From 2011 and 2015: Regaining consciousness in a city “coming” to? Or, the infamous Come to City marketing fiasco of 2011), and I recommend you pause and read it.

This specific meeting in 2011 was the direct impetus for the New Albany Restaurant and Bar Association (NARBA), as several of us were determined that never again would there be such a thing as Come to City.

Here’s a teaser -- and it’s now six years, not five:

Almost five years have passed, and yes, the local independent business community has utterly failed to unite for the common good – if it had, then Irv Stumler and Jim Padgett would be unable to divide it with anti-Speck lies.

But as this unpleasantness clearly illustrates, New Albany’s political classes are the sole entities to profit from the division of business. City Hall and political parties cannot be trusted to facilitate unity when division suits them better. We must do it ourselves.

It bears noting that since Jeff Gahan came to office in 2012, he has succeeded in streamlining where England failed. The UEA is safely docile, purged and swaddled in-house, and DNA’s current role in all of it ... well, it brings me back to the merchant mixer meetings.

---

Eventually Dr. Peters closed the gallery, and the fire museum moved to Jeffersonville. By then, there had been much growth within the downtown business community, and a new generation of owner-operators, many of them in retail, stepped forward to organize the meetings. By 2015, the merchant mixer meetings had become a monthly fixture.

Now we’re midway through 2016, and since I’m not skilled at mincing words, let’s come right out and say it: DNA has annexed the merchant mixer meetings. You needn’t take my word for it.

Rather, the mayor himself will explain, as he did at the Pillar Awards in June.

"A lot of chemistry" is how New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan describes the relationship between Develop New Albany and the city's downtown business community.

In celebration of the fruits of that relationship, Gahan thanked DNA and its partners for nourishing historic downtown at the 2016 DNA Pillar Awards held on Thursday in the Calumet Club on Spring Street.

"DNA does a lot of things to protect our history and our downtown. They also preserve our downtown uniqueness, and we have a lot of people to thank for that," Gahan said. "But at the same time, DNA urges us to move forward. They encourage us to improve and more importantly, they challenge us to grow."

Verily, Dr. Goebbels never resorted to hyperbole of this effusive (and mistaken) degree, but so it goes in the Magic Kingdom of New Gahania. It should be clear that I emphatically disagree with such an assessment of DNA as originator of all downtown good, primarily because it simply isn’t true.

Not at all, although I have cause to hope for better results. First, we need to be very clear about something. It keeps being swept under the Down Low Bunker's tattered rug, and shouldn't be.

What has happened downtown during the past decade owes almost entirely to the time, effort and investment of small, independent business owners and operators, and a smaller number of contractors and builders, all of whom should be incredulous (and annoyed) to learn that DNA made it all possible.

Deep breath time.

Let’s pause again to consider what DNA actually is supposed to be doing. Just prior to DNA taking credit for downtown revitalization (Joseph – is that you again?), the lead paragraph at its website reads …

Develop New Albany was founded in 1990 by community-minded individuals and local business leaders. The leadership of Develop New Albany focuses the organization on the economic revitalization, historic preservation, and promotion of our Historic Downtown. As a volunteer-based organization, Develop New Albany accomplishes this mission by adhering to the tenants of the National and Indiana Main Street models, which focus on the areas of economic restructuring, design, promotion, and organization.

I’m very glad they mentioned National Main Street’s Four Point approach, which always has possessed merit, and at the present time is being “refreshed” to bring its goals up to date.

Will these ideas (guys, it's not restructuring any longer, but vitality) ever seep down to us? We can only hope.

The community development field has changed dramatically over the course of the past three and a half decades. In many ways, new trends in planning, development, and preservation build off principles that those in the Main Street network have long understood: that revitalization must be inclusive and representative of the community, that a place’s distinctive characteristics and older and historic buildings are its greatest assets, and that fostering a strong local-business environment creates enormous rewards.

National Main Street hopes to correct certain errant conditions.

Many Main Street programs tend to focus too much time and effort on the components of the Main Street Approach where they may feel most comfortable, and where they can have the most visible impact in a short period of time – most often, Design and Promotion. As a result, many programs report that they struggle to be recognized as serious revitalization organizations and reach key revitalization benchmarks.

In short, event-planning has become the focus of many such organizations, and this can cause them to lose focus on the bigger picture. National Main Street is on it.

As has been the case in the past, Main Streets will be encouraged to engage a wide range of local stakeholders in developing a vision of success for their downtown or neighborhood commercial districts. Main Streets will then be urged to develop cross-cutting Community Transformation Strategies that are connected to meaningful, longterm change. Progress will be measured in a variety of ways, including through economic metrics and qualitative assessment.

I cannot emphasize the importance of downtown independent business owners taking a few minutes to read these two National Main Street documents, and to consider how useful they'd be if applied to New Albany.

1 The Main Street Approach

2 The Four Point Refresh: A Primer

Imagine ...

---

Taking the charitable point of view, I’ll assume that DNA is indeed capable of making the transition to National Main Street’s “new-think,” even if it never really mastered the previous schemata. And, to be fair, it’s always been a genuine conundrum for DNA.

DNA’s membership-driven approach hasn’t been successful, and often is the cause of derision in the community, as was manifested at the July merchant mixer when it was suggested that downtown merchants cannot benefit from promotion at Jingle Walk without first having a membership in DNA.

Of course, DNA receives at least some money from taxpayers, and accordingly, it should not ever be in the position of excluding taxpayers, but this stance subsequently has been modified.

It’s also important to note that National Main Street itself actively discourages reliance on membership-driven models, for this reason and others.

DNA as originally chartered was directly tethered to funding provided by the UEA in the form of a shared executive director, a situation that changed ten years ago when Nick Cortolillo retired and DNA’s leadership promptly seceded from the only clear funding mechanism it ever possessed rather than have Mike Ladd as its director.

On top of this oddity, DNA has been chronically under-financed by a succession of City Halls, which forever seek to reference the organization’s awesome transformational activities without ever funding it to achieve anything truly transformational (or awesome), which in practice means that little transformational has ever occurred – except the daily awesomeness leveraged by our small, independent business owners, which has been considerable, if incessantly (and in my view, criminally) undervalued by occupants of the mayoral throne.

It’s not hard to read between the lines of Gahan’s characteristically bizarre Pillar Award comments, and couple them with the increasingly high profile of DNA in what previously were skull sessions on the part of independent business representatives with real skin in the game, to reach a conclusion.

It’s all about control, folks – controlling information, agendas and money.

If you own a small, independent business downtown, are you really on board with the idea of channeling energies through Develop New Albany as a subsidiary of City Hall, and as a “brand” extension of the current occupant? We have enough mud-buried anchors already.

There just might be another route, one that involves DNA doing what it should have been doing all along. Consequently, please … PLEASE … do me this one favor and consider the message embodied by National Main Street’s four-point refresh at the previous links.

The points therein still make sense, and the updated idea of community transformation strategies might well be inclusive and cooperative.

It may even be possible for this process of “refreshing” to result in substantive cooperation between stakeholders, but first, we must resolve not to continue allowing ourselves to be spoon-fed by entities and organizations UNLESS they’re able to communicate and express how the proposals they’re making jibe with their own foundational principles, whether DNA’s economic vitality imperative or the city’s commitment to public safety for all citizens, and entirely divorced from the political imperative of the millisecond.

If you rehabbed a space, set up a shop and started doing business downtown, then the ultimate power’s with you, but only when collectively exercised. The very least you can do is make them answer coherently, explain cogently, and look you in the eye.

They don’t want to do it, and that’s why you have to do it.

After all, isn't cooperation a two-way street?

---

August 4: ON THE AVENUES: Federal funding mechanisms total eighty percent. The other half is unalloyed political malice.

July 28: ON THE AVENUES: An imaginary exercise tentatively called The Curmudgeon Free House.

July 21: ON THE AVENUES: We have our own Big Four Bridge. They’re called Main, Market, Spring and Elm.

July 14: ON THE AVENUES: Weeds, porch appliances and our civic Gospel of Appearances.

Guest column by Nick Vaughn: "We all want New Albany to succeed."

As a prelude to Nick's first guest column at NA Confidential (let's hope there are others), read about his non-profit venture.

A BRIGHTER FUTURE: BrightNA seeks to help break the poverty cycle, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Community Montessori High School senior Nick Vaughn narrowly lost in the May New Albany City Council District 6 Republican Party primary. He had a plan to start a work program to benefit disadvantaged residents, and though it won't be implemented yet in a governmental platform, Vaughn has launched a nonprofit aimed at ushering low-income families out of poverty.

It's been a pleasure to get to know Nick these past few months. Here is his submission, and we thank him for it.

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Vaughn: We all want New Albany to succeed. 

Now that this election season is over and the dust has settled, it is time to analyze the outcomes and results, and also look to what should happen in these next four years.

I am not writing this to make a partisan stand against anyone, I am frankly tired of partisanship, locally, statewide, and nationally. Instead, I intend this to be an honest analysis of the issues facing New Albany and what needs to be done about them. I am not advocating for a Republican way to do things or a Democratic way to do things, neither left nor right. I am only advocating for the correct way to do things.

First, we must realize that there are only two options: up or down. We can continue down this path of spending, or our elected officials can take the morally correct action and begin to pay down our enormous debt, cut back on non-essential spending, and begin to make up for the crippling amount of job loss incurred with Sonoco and Pillsbury (among others) leaving New Albany and laying off hundreds. 

Is the current budget balanced? Yes, but at the cost of the people. The budget has increased by 58% over the past four years mainly due to the gross amount of bonded debt our city is incurring. 

Is our financial rating an A+? Yes, but that’s not our ceiling. An A+ financial rating would be a good thing in most cities, if it wasn’t a degradation. To explain, financial ratings are based on the creditworthiness of a business, city, etc. and its likelihood to default. Our rating has gone down because our creditworthiness has decreased due to the amount of bonded debt we have incurred.

Next, poverty. Never has there been a more pressing issue facing our city or our nation. Poverty is a terrible burden set on individuals, and unfortunately our current way of addressing this issue creates a cycle of poverty. Because our city officials have not even begun to address the issue of poverty, nearly 25% of our citizens go to sleep hungry at night with no hope of that changing anytime soon. 

That being said, things can change. I am officially extending my helping hand, if wanted, to our Mayor. My non-profit BrightNA could be a big help to our city if given the proper amount of support.

Finally, being humble in defeat is one thing, being humble in victory is another. The results have been tallied and the victors announced. We are all in this together now so it is no time to be vindictive or hamper progress due to petty political issues. 

We might be of different political parties, but we all want the same goal: we want New Albany to succeed. Now more than ever, we need New Albany to succeed. With all of the progress and business development in Jeffersonville, we need leaders who can unite a city and bring us forward. 

We are at a crossroads, we can either capitalize on the unique aspects of our city, or we will be left behind by our ever expanding neighbor.

ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

You may have noticed that in 2015, I’ve consciously soft-pedaled blog references to Harvest Homecoming.

In completely unrelated news, there is an amazing concept called “pragmatism.” It has taken me 55 years to be introduced to it, and I thought I’d give it a whirl. Being pragmatic actually has little to do with running for mayor. It’s about reformatting for the future, and getting something important accomplished.

Those detailed annual critiques of Harvest Homecoming, as regularly offered here since 2005, remain far more applicable than not. They’re objective, factual and easily searchable. You are invited to indulge, read and learn.

Apart from impeccable reasoning of the sort I’ve offered in this space previously, I have three primary reasons for taking a break in 2015.

First, there is escalating personal exhaustion.

Numerous metaphorical 800-lb. gorillas roam the mean streets of New Albany, and without occasional exercises in triage, energy conservation and gin, wrestling with them all at once can be quite tiring. It’s better to pick selected battles and topple the behemoths each in turn – or, failing that, drink more gin.

Second, I’m experiencing mounting personal changes, many of them delightful.

My decision to uncouple from NABC has been liberating in several ways. Among them is a boomerang of sorts with regard to my terms of engagement with Harvest Homecoming.

The advent of downtown New Albany’s first wave of indies (i.e. Bistro New Albany, circa 2006), and then later Bank Street Brewhouse (2009), brought me into annual downtown contact with Harvest Homecoming for the first time in decades. BSB’s concurrent Fringe Fest was and is a direct response to the myriad challenges of happy harvesting for local independent businesses.

Dependent on my future job status, perhaps now I’ll be free to revert to that halcyon pre-2006 default condition of avoiding upcloseandpersonal contact with Harvest Homecoming, especially as it is manifested in its enduringly invasive “booth days.”

Frankly, it’s never been my kind of event, and there’s not much of substance in it for folks like me. So be it, and it takes all sorts to fill a planet.

As such, I envision a future family custom of departing for vacation on the Monday following the parade, because parade day has taken on a renewed significance for me, which brings us to Reason Number Three.

There’s a new tradition called Biers on Parade.

---

This year the New Albany Restaurant & Bar Association “popped up” a beer garden at the Farmers Market, intended to coincide with the parade. The weather didn’t cooperate, but we got it done with the active help of the New Albany Farmers Market and Harvest Homecoming. Even the captive Board of Public Works and Safety gave prompt and courteous approval.

See, various entities actually can row in the same direction. Kudos to them all.

We’re eager to build on this year’s Biers on Parade experiment as the capstone to an entirely different and yet complementary concept for the week preceding Harvest Homecoming’s downtown takeover.

This is the cause of heightened economic localism, and a week-long spotlight placed directly on local independent businesses.

Let it be known that enhanced localism should be the basis for the city of New Albany’s overall economic development strategy, and if I’m elected mayor, it will be. The American Independent Business Alliance offers one reason why.

“Multiple studies show locally-owned independent restaurants return twice as much per dollar of revenue to our local economy than chain restaurants. And independent retailers return more than three times as much money per dollar of sales than chain competitors.”

As we continue working toward this goal, pragmatic adjustments to the fall calendar are in order. Harvest Homecoming’s parade always takes place on the first Saturday in October. Henceforth, we’re hoping that the last Sunday in September provides a handy annual localism kickoff with Indie Fest, followed by New Albany Restaurant & Bar Week, concluding with Biers on Parade.

Taken together, it’s a ready-made Indie Week to bookend Harvest Homecoming. It extends festive times over two full weeks, not just one. It provides the opportunity to trumpet the merits of “we’re here all year” alongside those of “come to Harvest Homecoming once a year.” It can be adapted to all downtown stakeholders, not just food and drink businesses.

It restores balance, and takes a necessary step toward democratizing downtown.

What it cannot do is completely relieve the stress points created by Harvest Homecoming’s “booth days” presence in an evolving, working, beating heart of a city. In years to come, dozens of people will be living upstairs in previously vacant buildings. Festive noise and clutter are one thing, and access to living space something very different. Something’s got to give.

However, I’ve become convinced that a younger generation of Harvest Homecoming movers and doers understands the need for evolution. We worked together to stage Biers on Parade. This year’s official Harvest Homecoming program contains a centerfold map of downtown, highlighting local independent businesses. It isn’t perfect, but reformers need encouragement.

Better communication helps. If I’m elected mayor, transparency is a guarantee, and we’ll move along the process. If not, irrespective of my new life, I intend to remain involved with independent local business activities preceding Harvest Homecoming.

---

A final word about my parade non-participation in 2015.

This year, I couldn’t bend the parade committee to the notion of common sense, which to me implies an acceptance of walking as the simplest, most basic form of human transportation.

There was a surreal, 1960s-era quality to the conversation (paraphrasing): “You’re the candidate of walkability, and walkability is the future of our downtown? That’s nice, but don’t you want a shiny car for that? After all, it’s Hot Rod Harvest.”

No thanks. I’d just like to walk the parade.

Yes, bureaucracies usually evolve accordingly. Rule books cease being living documents, and become immutable commandments for facilitating control. But if there is any single thing I’ve learned in the craft beer business, it’s that creativity freshens stale orthodoxy – and creativity is best inspired by letting loose, as opposed to tightening up.

I believe the parade is redeemable, and should be multi-modal – just like the streets it uses each year.

We’ll get to THAT, too.

If you venture into the weekend's Harvest Homecoming scrum, remember the buildings behind the booths. The businesses inside them -- and the people living above them -- are here all year.

---

Recent columns:

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Almost two years later, Mr. Gahan has yet to plug in this clock, and so it's time for him to clock out.

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Dear Neighbor: If you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: Lanesville Heritage Weekend comes around again.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: When even Mitt Romney can run to the left of New Albany’s Democrats, it's a very big problem.

August 27: ON THE AVENUES: Whips, chains and economic development (2010).

August 20: ON THE AVENUES: In the groove.

Today's Tribune column: "Downtown for a reason."

Often I'll be speaking with someone about my bicycling commute to work (either NABC location), and the response will be some variant of this: "You're lucky to be able to do that."

Nope. Luck's nice, but it isn't the same as planning. Both now and previously, my choice of home was made with factors like this in mind. That's why ...

BAYLOR: (We're) downtown for a reason

It was no accident that in 2003, we bought a house on East Spring Street. Granted, there were fortuitous convergences, like being acquainted with the people who were selling the property, but the decision-making process did not occur on a whim, a prayer or a dare.

Hurried Friday scribblings.

It's frustrating not to have the time to write when there is much to say, but I'm just going to have to accept that this is going to be one of those days.

It probably sounded like I was giving Jeff Roudenbush too hard a time in last evening's hurried posting, and if so, apologies. Anyone with ideas about downtown is welcomed at the table, with the frustration on my part coming from the unwillingness of so many people who have ideas to take note of what's already going on. More so, with another neighborhood forum approaching, there's the fact that locals hereabouts refuse to sit at the same table even when self-interest compels them to do so.

It is so very clear to me that three (maybe more) fundmental preconditions are necessary to make this notion of a functional downtown come to fruition. First, government must takes its own rulebook seriously. Second, there must be a comprehensive plan for reinventing the core. Third, there must be unity among all participants in order to achieve it.

Specifically, although I abhor ROCK's goals, I envy its organizational skills. These skills are not unique to one-issue lobbyists inspired by religion. They are available to all, and yet New Albany's citizenry persists in fragmentation.

Everyone has ideas ... why not work together to see which of the ideas are useful, which are repetitive, and which have a chance of succeeding? Obviously, it won't happen for so long as the "our people vs. them people" mentality reigns.

As noted, there's no time today. I'll be at the Bank Street site by 9:30 a.m., meet with our licensing lawyer from Indy at 11:00 a.m at the Plaza Drive location, then be back downtown to show him the build-out and be at the Carnegie by 1:00 p.m. for the urban enterprise zone seminar. After that, with luck, there'll be time for a progressive pint and cigar at Connor's Place.

Have a good Friday, all.

REWIND: Bile, loathing and a civil society.

The following, the first of two going out to our community's "small government" adherents, was originally published in April, 2006 under the title: Goodbye, Main Street Grind ... maybe in another 12 years, your view might have improved. Or not. It has been reprinted on several occasions since, because the topic a "civil society" remains of enduring significance for New Albany. I've omitted the photos that originally were attached, and apologize for those parts that seem dated. I'd prefer preserving the integrity of the original rather than edit.

See also: REWIND ... From Norquist to Torquemada to Brambleberry: Pathologies of tax "reform."

---

I learned over the weekend that New Albany’s Main Street Grind coffee shop plans to wind down operations at the beginning of April after 12 years in business.

That’s quite a run, and it’s a shame for it to end. The way you feel when you read an obituary -- that's the way a small business owner reacts to word that a fellow operator is folding up his tent. I look into the mirror, and say to myself: I'm still standing – at least for now ... but tomorrow may be very different.

Although we have mutual friends, I’m not well acquainted with the owners, who’ve always been hospitable and friendly during my infrequent visits.

Especially since moving into downtown in 2003, D and I have eagerly sought a “third place” to pass time near our home, but since our working hours are during the day and Main Street Grind’s hours were geared to lunchtime, it wasn’t possible to go as often as we’d have liked.

Yesterday I was corresponding with a friend and discussing the impending departure of the Main Street Grind, and she wrote:

I've been going to the Grind for 12 long years, and I've watched those buildings across the street from it decay for 12 long years and then some.

I've watched other businesses open in other parts of town, struggle and finally close because of the lack of leadership, vision and management in this city. It's sad, it's disgusting and who the hell do you blame when there are so many people responsible for the mess? City planners? Mayors? Develop New Albany? Building Commissioners?

Is there anybody in there?

Lamentable, but very true, although she omitted a key player: We the people – the residents of New Albany. "We" have just the sort of town "we" want, because if we didn't, would it be like this?

The inescapable conclusion is that "we've met the enemy ... "

You know the rest of Pogo's Axiom.

In the end, leadership is meaningless unless one consents to being led, and vision optional in the absence of a desire to clearly see.

Management? That’s merely an impediment to the profits to be accrued in the preferred vacuum of non-enforcement and apathy.

At the conclusion of the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, the dissident writer and playwright Vaclav Havel was elected president of the country that less than a year before had imprisoned him. Havel's government faced an exceedingly difficult necessity of finding ways to reverse four decades of economic stagnation brought about by the outmoded, state-owned economy, and doing so without societal chaos.

After all that time, the intrinsic absurdities of the command economy were evident, but people were accustomed to them. Suddenly, things had to change.

President Havel offered few concrete ideas as to how the government might retool his country’s uncompetitive economy. Instead, and significantly, he focused on what he perceived was necessary at a more fundamental and human level, something without which the economic reform program would have little chance of succeeding.

Havel theorized that the chief legacy of Communism was a degradation of the core of Czechoslovak society itself, and consequently, before economic rationalization could succeed, a “civil society” would have to be defined and rebuilt from the ground up.

----

As events of the past week have amply illustrated, Havel’s analysis applies foursquare to New Albany, and this is why events like the forthcoming neighborhoods forum are so important. Without a firm perimeter established in the places where we live, it is unlikely that citywide redemption can succeed.

Currently there are pockets of worthwhile activism scattered throughout the city, but owing to longstanding patterns of mistrust and a general lack of communication, there is no cooperation between them.

Unfortunately, there is an attitude of persecution and secrecy on the part of many who fear that communication and cooperation might somehow provide succor to the political enemy of this moment or the next – and this is profoundly shortsighted, although understandable in the present context of bile and loathing.

To be truthful, the beneficiaries of non-cooperation aren’t so much political in nature as they are social. Non-cooperation nurtures the same deleterious conditions of incivility and inertia within the same vacuum of unaccountability that we all claim to abhor and seek to terminate.

As my friend noted above, whom do you blame when there are so many to blame?

Vaclav Havel provides the answer: We must remove ourselves from the cycle of blame and get on with the process of building a civil society with a firm foundation that prefaces future progress.

New Albany is profoundly dysfunctional. We’ve all acquiesced in various and sundry ways in permitting the city to become dysfunctional. The only hope of reversing this dysfunction is to join together in a workable coalition that suspends partisan wrangling, concedes the immensity of the task, formulates sustainable strategies, and gets to work.

Money would help, too, but unity is far more important.

So, who among us wishes to abandon his or her laboriously crafted straw man first, and get on with the task of reconstituting New Albany’s lost civility?

Did I just hear another pin drop?

REWIND: Bile, loathing and a civil society.

The following, the first of two going out to Daniel in the "small government" exurb, was originally published in April, 2006 under the title: Goodbye, Main Street Grind ... maybe in another 12 years, your view might have improved. Or not. The part of current interest to me is the mention of a "civil society." I've omitted the photos that originally were attached.

See also: REWIND ... From Norquist to Torquemada to Brambleberry: Pathologies of tax "reform."

---

I learned over the weekend that New Albany’s Main Street Grind coffee shop plans to wind down operations at the beginning of April after 12 years in business.

That’s quite a run, and it’s a shame for it to end. The way you feel when you read an obituary -- that's the way a small business owner reacts to word that a fellow operator is folding up his tent. I look into the mirror, and say to myself: I'm still standing – at least for now ... but tomorrow may be very different.

Although we have mutual friends, I’m not well acquainted with the owners, who’ve always been hospitable and friendly during my infrequent visits.

Especially since moving into downtown in 2003, D and I have eagerly sought a “third place” to pass time near our home, but since our working hours are during the day and Main Street Grind’s hours were geared to lunchtime, it wasn’t possible to go as often as we’d have liked.

Yesterday I was corresponding with a friend and discussing the impending departure of the Main Street Grind, and she wrote:

I've been going to the Grind for 12 long years, and I've watched those buildings across the street from it decay for 12 long years and then some.

I've watched other businesses open in other parts of town, struggle and finally close because of the lack of leadership, vision and management in this city. It's sad, it's disgusting and who the hell do you blame when there are so many people responsible for the mess? City planners? Mayors? Develop New Albany? Building Commissioners?

Is there anybody in there?

Lamentable, but very true, although she omitted a key player: We the people – the residents of New Albany. "We" have just the sort of town "we" want, because if we didn't, would it be like this?

The inescapable conclusion is that "we've met the enemy ... "

You know the rest of Pogo's Axiom.

In the end, leadership is meaningless unless one consents to being led, and vision optional in the absence of a desire to clearly see.

Management? That’s merely an impediment to the profits to be accrued in the preferred vacuum of non-enforcement and apathy.

At the conclusion of the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, the dissident writer and playwright Vaclav Havel was elected president of the country that less than a year before had imprisoned him. Havel's government faced an exceedingly difficult necessity of finding ways to reverse four decades of economic stagnation brought about by the outmoded, state-owned economy, and doing so without societal chaos.

After all that time, the intrinsic absurdities of the command economy were evident, but people were accustomed to them. Suddenly, things had to change.

President Havel offered few concrete ideas as to how the government might retool his country’s uncompetitive economy. Instead, and significantly, he focused on what he perceived was necessary at a more fundamental and human level, something without which the economic reform program would have little chance of succeeding.

Havel theorized that the chief legacy of Communism was a degradation of the core of Czechoslovak society itself, and consequently, before economic rationalization could succeed, a “civil society” would have to be defined and rebuilt from the ground up.

----

As events of the past week have amply illustrated, Havel’s analysis applies foursquare to New Albany, and this is why events like the forthcoming neighborhoods forum are so important. Without a firm perimeter established in the places where we live, it is unlikely that citywide redemption can succeed.

Currently there are pockets of worthwhile activism scattered throughout the city, but owing to longstanding patterns of mistrust and a general lack of communication, there is no cooperation between them.

Unfortunately, there is an attitude of persecution and secrecy on the part of many who fear that communication and cooperation might somehow provide succor to the political enemy of this moment or the next – and this is profoundly shortsighted, although understandable in the present context of bile and loathing.

To be truthful, the beneficiaries of non-cooperation aren’t so much political in nature as they are social. Non-cooperation nurtures the same deleterious conditions of incivility and inertia within the same vacuum of unaccountability that we all claim to abhor and seek to terminate.

As my friend noted above, whom do you blame when there are so many to blame?

Vaclav Havel provides the answer: We must remove ourselves from the cycle of blame and get on with the process of building a civil society with a firm foundation that prefaces future progress.

New Albany is profoundly dysfunctional. We’ve all acquiesced in various and sundry ways in permitting the city to become dysfunctional. The only hope of reversing this dysfunction is to join together in a workable coalition that suspends partisan wrangling, concedes the immensity of the task, formulates sustainable strategies, and gets to work.

Money would help, too, but unity is far more important.

So, who among us wishes to abandon his or her laboriously crafted straw man first, and get on with the task of reconstituting New Albany’s lost civility?

Did I just hear another pin drop?

Devil's advocate: There's a big reason why a springtime festival for New Albany won't float.

In yesterday’s posting about the past weekend’s folk festival in Madison, I appended “civic cooperation” to the list of search terms. This was done so intentionally.

Madison's successful Ohio River Valley Folk Festival is a model, but ya gotta want to emulate it.

In the perky discussion that followed, several perfectly reasonable ideas were lofted, and these might be summarized as a collective interest in a springtime festival celebrating New Albany’s river connections and history, with added dimensions of unity and diversity. There was a listing of steps to take toward inaugurating such an event, and one comment (by John Alton) stood out, at least to me:

Third, you plan by example. The Harvest Homecoming is one of the most successful festivals in Indiana, and it is a perfect blueprint to follow. It gained its status through great planning, hard work and dedication. A Spring Festival that celebrates our history as a city ... and why we are even a city ... deserves no less.

True ... and not so easy.

Of course, all of us know that if there is to be another public celebration in New Albany, it isn’t going to be in late summer or fall, because that’s Harvest Homecoming’s time of the year. Have you ever wondered if Harvest Homecoming's scale actually precludes other efforts in the same vein?

Yes, there’s already a one-day 4th of July fireworks display along the waterfront. Other than that, whether for reasons of non-funding or lack of imagination on the part of the management, the riverside facilities we have are chronically, and seemingly perpetually, underutilized.

Perhaps not all readers know that for a few years prior to 2007, when it has disappeared into limbo, there was a Develop New Albany-sponsored springtime festival downtown called Da Vinci. There are many reasons why Da Vinci was an idea whose time never came, with non-funding and lack of imagination (is there a deep scratch on this LP?) being just two, although maybe it was a just one of those notions before its time.

As downtown revives, there may be another chance to attempt something that begins small, with annual growth potential.

To my mind, here’s the central question:

Is Harvest Homecoming too big for there to be another festival that might be viewed as competing for scant community resources?

Ideas we surely have, and in abundance, but money and volunteer labor are two commodities in much, much shorter supply. Currently these are directed toward Harvest Homecoming, which possesses its own internal and self-perpetuating set of rationales and objectives. For what it is, it’s a wonderful thing.

But as my councilman might say, it is what it is.

Put simply, and in terms of New Albany’s willingness and ability to fund and manage an outreach to the remainder of the world, there is neither an institutional nor a strategic counterweight to the annual pre-eminence of Harvest Homecoming

Contrast this to Madison, where it would appear that in matters of events pertaining to the imperative of providing entertainment for the citizenry while also pulling in money from visitors, there is a shared sense of purpose, pooled resources, and cohesion … and a half-dozen annual events from which to choose.

As my councilman also might say, that’s not putting all the eggs in one basket. It seems to work for Madison.

Meanwhile, New Albany has Harvest Homecoming. We appear to be content with that, so it isn’t realistic to expect short term changes.

In other words, if we're to work our side of the street as directed, we're going to have to be thinking way outside the box.

And that isn't something for which this city is celebrated.

Madison's successful Ohio River Valley Folk Festival is a model, but ya gotta want to emulate it.

The second annual Ohio River Valley Folk Festival is history, and the city of Madison could not have asked for a better weekend in terms of weather, even if it was a bit nippy on Friday evening.

As in 2006, the crowd was well-behaved and the music superlative. The festival’s organizers persist in espousing the apparently revolutionary notion that a gathering dedicated to the diverse ethos of folk music should also reflect grassroots choices in food and drink.

Consequently, Budweiser was not available, there was no California box wine in sight, and Taco Bell didn’t have a concession. It was enough to gladden a contrarian’s heart – although the Thomas Family Winery’s delightful hard cider helps on that count.

There was a noticeable sprinkling of New Albanians in the crowd, and most probably were thinking much the same as I: Why can’t New Albany use its riverfront more often? Or hold more than one festival a year? Or work together in some fashion resembling a team to stage events that bring money and tourists from outside the city limits?

Is it in the water?

But it’s the same river, isn’t it?