What budgetary crisis? Nawbany nickel-and-dimes 50K for the homeless, then awards $2.2 million in tax abatements for Sazarac NOD.

Did former conservative Jason Applegate check Sazarac's "economic development" numbers as closely as he examined Rev. Moon's last time out?

Is Applegate still selling advertising for his magazine? But let's not go there. Rather, let's "extol" the virtues of the council's lone "no" vote on Monday night. Take it away, Josh Turner.

I feel the need to make a comment to explain my reasoning on being the only “No” vote tonight on the Sazerac Tax Abatement Resolution.

I am happy that Sazerac has set up shop here in our city. I am excited to see them grow and create 50 new local high paying jobs.

However, I care deeply about where we stand financially as a city and I care about our home grown, locally owned, small businesses. As many of you know, I have had a difficult time acquiring city financials since I have taken office. With the lack of access to these records I do not truly know where we stand financially as a city. The one thing that is certain is during this pandemic and the impending bridge closure is that we will lose small businesses, the life blood of our community, and major jobs creator. I could not in good conscience vote “Yes” to giving 2+ million dollars of tax revenue to a company that made around a billion dollars in revenue last year.

I initially moved to table this vote until I could review financials and make an informed decision. Unfortunately, it did not get a second, and I was forced to make the only responsible decision in my opinion at the time without having all of the facts.

Zirin: "Sports Tax Scams Laid the Groundwork for Amazon Bidding Madness."

Try to imagine another major American sports writer saying this:

Our love of sports laid the groundwork for the madness of "lotteryism." We’re the frog in the slowly boiling water. And they are not content merely to cook us. We’re also their dinner.

And, as the ever-masterful Zirin notes in this essay, "lotteryism (is) little more than corporate theft, in collusion with often Democratic Party–led governments."

Earlier this morning, Zirin tweeted this closing thought.

You think it's possible that Trump is turning up the vile racism at precisely this moment to push through a tax bill that benefits the 1% so we fight each other while he robs us blind?

Think so? It seems to be working, isn't it?

Sports Tax Scams Laid the Groundwork for Amazon Bidding Madness, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Cities that have been most shameless in their stadium spending are now groveling for Amazon’s largess

The terrific podcast Citations Needed, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, call it “lotteryism”—the grotesque process where local and state governments bid for Fortune 500 companies by offering billions of dollars in tax breaks in the hopes that they will relocate to their cities. The most high-profile example of this right now is, of course, Amazon. Politicians across the country are offering absurd packages to attract the new “Amazon HQ2” headquarters. These enticements will gut services for those who depend on public schools, hospitals, public transportation, and basic infrastructure. This is not to say that Amazon won’t bring jobs to these cities. It is making promises of thousands of permanent hires. But the pound of flesh being offered for these jobs is frightening.

Chicago has said Amazon could keep employees’ income tax, a total estimated at $1.32 billion, according to the Seattle publication The Stranger. New Jersey has offered a staggering $7 billion dollars in tax breaks. Boston has offered to have city employees be privatized workers when doing work under the auspices of Jeff Bezos’s empire: his own army of the underclass. Southern California is offering $100 million in free land. Fresno is offering to “place 85 percent of every tax dollar generated by Amazon into a so-called ‘Amazon Community Fund.’” This would give Amazon control over where our taxes flow, which undoubtedly would be in the direction of its own well-compensated employees—think parks, bike lanes, condo development—creating a new model of gentrification, directly subsidized by the traffic tickets and meters and regressive taxation of the poor.

Fresno’s economic development director Larry Westerlund told the Los Angeles Times, “Rather than the money disappearing into a civic black hole, Amazon would have a say on where it will go. Not for the fire department on the fringe of town, but to enhance their own investment in Fresno.” Sure would suck to have your home on fire if you live on the “fringe of town.”

This is little more than corporate theft, in collusion with often Democratic Party–led governments. And publicly funded sports stadium scams and Olympic bidding wars laid the groundwork for it. They have normalized the idea that our tax dollars exist to fund the projects of the wealthy, with benefits trickling down in ways that only produce more thirst ...

Here's one for Wendy: "How Corporate Welfare Is Killing Small Businesses."

(Infographic from Money Choice)

But, you know, River Ridge and all. Follow the link to examine the chart in greater detail.

---

How Corporate Welfare Is Killing Small Businesses, by John White (Inc)

Despite being the backbone of the economy, funding from the Small Business Administration is a fraction of that of corporate welfare.

What is corporate welfare?
Corporate welfare is tax money that is given to corporations in order to encourage growth in a specific sector, stabilize a shaky sector, or avoid financial meltdown in a certain sector. Most notably we've seen this used to successfully avert a banking crisis in 2008, as well as the predicted collapse of the American auto industry between 2009 and 2013.

Big business wins big
Between 2000 and 2015, two-thirds of corporate welfare subsidies went to fewer than 600 large companies.

Small businesses can't compete
Even though small businesses are considered by many to be the backbone of our economy, accounting for 54% of all sales in the United States as well as the lion's share of job growth since the early 1990s, funding from the Small Business Administration is a fraction of that of corporate welfare. The SBA's budget was $1.4 billion in 2016, but the SBA only provides grants for nonprofits and educational institutions in certain growth sectors.

It does not provide direct loans to small businesses; instead, it provides guidelines for small business loans from lending institutions. You know, those big banks getting all the bailouts.

The Breakwater fire: Luckily there were no injuries, but are we REALLY sure the deity favors subsidized luxury?

Courtesy WHAS.

Some of us have spent a great deal of time and effort debating the merits of the Flaherty and Collins "luxury" apartment complex at the former Coyle block. These long hours might have been devoted to martinis, books and heavy metal; it's a dirty job, but one that remains sadly necessary in the absence of responsible local journalism.

The overall question has been phrased somewhat like this:

To what extent (if any) should City Hall subsidize private, for-profit development with an array of sewer tap-in waivers, tax abatements and other incentives -- enticements generally unavailable to smaller business entities, who must sink or swim by their own merits -- especially when the objective is high-end housing in a locale where poverty is rampant?

Yesterday morning the unoccupied, about-to-be-completed wing of The Breakwater, comprising two-thirds of the development's residential space on the west side of the block (Elm and 4th), caught fire. The sprinkler system had not been activated because construction was ongoing. The result was an arduous daylong firefighting battle in adverse conditions.

It is far too early to judge, but the likelihood is high that the wing is a total loss, and the developers already have publicly committed to a rebuild, at least in statements to local media. There'll be an investigation into the cause of the fire. Presumably insurance will impel Flaherty and Collins forward to completion, while local taxpayers get the bill for fighting the blaze.

But it might have been far worse. We're all grateful that the building had no residents, and as usual in these cases, our first responders deserve comprehensive kudos. Fire fighters were on the job yesterday at 5:00 a.m. on a windy and cold day. They were joined by compatriots from Jeffersonville, Clarksville and Georgetown, and some of them probably are still there more than 24 hours later.

If I were Flaherty and Collins, there'd be 100+ area first responders enjoying complimentary steaks at Brooklyn and The Butcher.

Beyond all this, one point needs to be reiterated. I overheard a discussion at a recent meeting, in which The Breakwater was being discussed, and its luxuriousness praised. There were oohs and aahs, but without any meaningful context (how did this come to be?), it's impossible to arrive at a balanced conclusion.

City Hall obviously picked a winner in The Breakwater; conversely, it let "losers" languish. Discussions about propriety are by no means concluded, and the unfortunate fire doesn't change the parameters of this debate one single, solitary bit.

Civic engagement is not zero-sum. There are more options than all/none, and more angles of discussion than this/that. Assuming the developers rebuild, a finished and fully occupied apartment complex also won't change the parameters of the debate.

That's because it is perfectly legitimate to continue to ask questions about the applicability of taxpayer subsidies, the precedent of sewer tap-in waivers, the quality of construction techniques, the use of union versus non-union labor, the applicability of giveaways in the cause of "economic development" -- to name only a few issues.

In summary, profuse thanks are due our firefighters and first responders. It's a good thing residents weren't in the building. Decisions having already been made, the fire is a setback (see CM Knable's video and comments) and probably nothing more.

We'll be watching to see what happens next, and those questions? There is no reason to stop asking them, is there?

Never forget that Jeff Gahan used your tax dollars to subsidize luxury at Breakwater.

An "alternative fact" of a skyline? Learn more here.

Let's hope new residents at the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats aren't too disappointed when the city of Louisville turns out to be situated a bit further to the southwest than Pastime's gazebo.

Austin Carmony, the firm's vice president of development, said the complex's 66-unit residential building, where tenants have already started moving in, was completed in December. The second 125-unit building will be done in April. Rent for the units ranges from $650 to $1,650.

Let's also hope the most luxurious of the high end digs aren't gifted with a view of the lovely landscaping at AT&T, across an as yet uncalmed one-way Spring Street -- where presently, the traffic is moving faster than ever.

A relatively small space on the east side of the former Coyle showroom remains rough and unfinished, and so this evidently is what Carmony refers to in this passage.

The renovated former Coyle showroom will house retail and amenities including a heated pool, gym, grilling stations, fire pit and a dog park. Carmony said no one has signed on to fill the space yet, but he thinks a restaurant would be ideal in the location.

Another dog park? Who knew that the Coyle lot was built atop a Native American site? As an aside, I still think it was a mistake to omit bocce ball; if only Redevelopment would have kicked in another couple hundred thousand to a for-profit private developer to make it happen.

Wouldn't bocce have fit comfortably on one of those rooftops, thus better facilitating a distanced squint at Louisville?

Two months ago, a local restaurateur told the Green Mouse that the unfinished potential eatery space in the former showroom actually is priced fairly -- for being unfinished.

Flaherty and Collins apparently is offering to lease this space at the low bargain rate and provide something like $50,000 in cash for the build-out (the Green Mouse was told by the restaurateur that it wasn't enough of an enticement to interest him), but the dollars-per-square-foot price fairly skyrockets if the building's owner must finish the space.

Always be aware that as City Hall touts the many restaurants and bars downtown, as though it had anything whatever to do with their founding and operation -- and you can ask virtually any eatery owner to explain where the bulk of the start-up capital originates, this being with them, and not a magical bunkerside ATM -- the fact that the city subsidized the entirety of the Break Wind development means that the city also is subsidizing the eatery or bar that eventually comes to rest in the rough unfinished space. The city might as well be the one writing the check for $50K, right?

I'm not making this point owing to my antipathy for the current occupant, which is real, but rather because it's absolutely true. With Break Wind, the city's been picking winners with your money -- and is picking winners with your money the sort of thing you want Jeff Gahan doing?

Coyle showroom now luxury clubhouse in New Albany, by Madeleine Winer (Courier-Journal)

The clubhouse is open and the first tenants have started to move into The Breakwater, a luxury apartment complex still under construction in New Albany.

Breakwater, Break Wind: "We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's," or else we'll miss the thrill of public housing demolitions.

The expected breathlessness comes to us straight from the Hanson Advertising Aggregator, so a few actual facts are worth remembering:

1. Break Wind is the first instance in municipal history of sewer tap-in fees being waived for a private, for-profit developer, adding another few hundred thousand to the bonds mentioned below.

2. At a time when affordable housing is a nationwide dilemma, this public relations exaltation of drywall 'n' pressboard "luxury" is occurring simultaneously with Mayor Jeff Gahan's packing of the New Albany Housing Authority Board with slobbering sycophants (sorry, Shane) in anticipation of permanently reducing affordable housing (and shrinking the safety net) for the city's working poor.

3. Finally, seeing as the city is subsidizing this private for-profit development with sewer tap-in waivers, bonds and infrastructure, the city also will be subsidizing the private for-profit eatery mentioned as potential tenant of Break Wind's retail space.This is an affront to every entrepreneur who has invested in downtown with little or no similar assistance from Team Gahan.

In the Dear Leader's shining city on the flood plain, the beat (and the hypocrisy, and the reconstituted prostitution) goes on ... and on ... and on ...

The Breakwater starts moving in tenants; 13 leasers set to move into the first, 66-unit residential building by the end of the month, by Danielle Grady

Flaherty & Collins is still looking for a tenant to fill the retail space, however. A restaurant that benefits the city would be ideal, Carmony said.

As the property continues to take shape, Carmony said he expects more Breakwater residents to sign leases.

The Breakwater, a $26.5 million project, is being built with the help of $4.9 million in bonds from the city and a $3.3 million tax credit from the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

The development will pay $250,000 in property taxes, and its residents will pump millions into the local economy, said David Flaherty, the CEO of Flaherty & Collins, in a previous News and Tribune article.

Lease now at Break Wind, get a free pass to break the city's traffic laws.

Photo credit: The Bookseller.

We already knew that Flaherty and Collins Properties received unprecedented sewer tap-in waivers, but we didn't know the Indy-based balsa rabbit hutch moguls also received permission to violate the city of New Albany's prevailing traffic laws.

Let's look more closely at the corner of East Spring and 6th.

It might help to diagram the play.

Do not enter ... unless you're ready to lease!

Tap-in waivers, traffic law waivers ... you know, if I were a betting man, I'd suggest that Flaherty and Collins won't be paying those $5 rental property registration fees, either.

And if they do, David "Bag Man" Duggins will convey them straight into the Gahan for State Senate account.

What do you think?

Long before the Mightly Trumpolini, New Albany's Genius of the Flood Plain was tossing bales of taxpayer money at departing corporations.

First, the more topical reference.

1,000 Carrier Jobs Trump Celebrates Are Drop in the Bucket of Manufacturing Losses; Indiana alone has lost over 150,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, by Josh Zumbrun (Wall Street Journal)

But Mayor Jeff Gahan's been there with the corporate welfare, although there were no mud anchor t-shirts to be handed out 22 months ago because Pillsbury was making like the Eagles.

As an aside, On the Border was a fine album in its day -- so fresh and vibrant, as opposed to "crony capitalism" economic development handouts.

From January 26, 2015.

---

Information about the Pillsbury "business retention and factory-modernization package."

Two morsels for thought as we await the outcome.

$7 million works out to $3,500 per worker, per year, for five years (based on 400 employees at Pillsbury and Sonoco). From Charlie White's C-J coverage:

General Mills purchased Pillsbury in summer of 2000 from British food company Diageo for $10.5 billion. In fiscal year 2014, General Mills had global net sales of $19.2 billion.

Indiana economic development officials provided General Mills more than $100,000 in incentives in the last 10 years to ensure kept its workforce of about 480. But over the last three to four years, the company shifted manufacturing of some product lines to its more modern operation in Murfreesboro, Tenn., plant. The food giant spent $100 million expanding there four years ago.

Second, there is no reference to the concurrent implications of negotiations between General Mills and the union, as mentioned previously. Is our $7 million in proposed incentives keeping pay as it is, or does it accompany concessions from the union?

In trying to educate myself about these issues, I've been wondering if there's a Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union local in Murfreesboro. If there is, I can't find on-line references to it.

Readers, do you know?

Worth the dough? New Albany may offer $7 million to keep Pillsbury Plant, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Last week, several New Albany City Council members pledged to diligently work on solutions to keep the General Mills plant open.

On Tuesday, the council will be asked to give its blessing for a $7 million bond package Mayor Jeff Gahan’s administration hopes will stave off the closure, which General Mills announced Jan. 8 could happen within 18 months ...

 ... "We have assembled a business retention and factory-modernization package for our friends at General Mills to consider,” Gahan stated in a news release issued Friday afternoon.

“Our goal is to keep the New Albany facility in continuous operation for as long as possible.”

"It doesn't matter whether Guy Fieri's new Louisville restaurant has good beer because none of us will be going there anyway."

The following first appeared at my Potable Curmudgeon blog on May 10, 2016. As Insider Louisville reminds us, the breathless opening is nigh: "On Saturday, Sept. 10, Louisvillians will find out if Guy Fieri is more than a television personality."

Does anyone have a bucket?

Not if Cordish can help it. 

Otherwise sensible people lost their minds earlier today when celebrity chef Guy Fieri announced the opening of a "Smokehouse" eatery within the friendly, taxpayer-subsidized confines of Louisville's Fourth Street Live.

That he did so during an event entitled Hometown Tourist Attraction Showcase tells us that irony resistance is at an all-time high.

Needless to say, independent eateries and watering holes enjoy no such coddled treatment, and if you look at Fieri's web site, and this list of his brands, you'll see that when it comes to opening new restaurants, he minimizes risk at every opportunity.

GUY FIERI’S AMERICAN KITCHEN + BAR: CANCUN
Cancun International Airport, Mexico

EL BURRO BORRACHO
Harrah's Casino, Laughlin NV

GUY FIERI’S BALTIMORE KITCHEN & BAR
Horseshoe Casino, Baltimore MD

GUY FIERI’S MT POCONO KITCHEN
Mount Airy Casino, Mt. Pocono PA

GUY FIERI’S CHOPHOUSE
Bally's Atlantic City Casino, NJ

GUY FIERI’S VEGAS KITCHEN & BAR
The Linq Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas NV

GUY’S BURGER JOINT
Carnival Cruise Lines and Live Nation venues:
Carnival Breeze
Carnival Conquest
Carnival Freedom
Carnival Glory
Carnival Liberty
Carnival Pride
Carnival Sunshine
Carnival Triumph
Carnival Vista

Sleep Train Amphitheater – Chula Vista, CA
Shoreline Amphitheater – Mountain View, CA
Xfinity Theater – Hartford, CT
Jiffy Lube Live – Bristow, VA
MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater – Tampa, FL
Perfect Vodka Amphitheater – West Palm Beach, FL
Hollywood Casino Amphitheater – Tinley Park, IL
Klipsch Music Center, Noblesvile, IN
Hollywood Casino Amphitheater – St. Louis, MO
BB&T Pavillion – Camden, NJ
Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre – Long Island, NY
Blossom Music Center – Cuyahoga Falls, OH
First Niagara Pavilion – Pittsburgh, PA
Gexa Energy Pavilion – Dallas, TX
Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater – Virginia Beach, VA
White River Amphitheater – Auburn, WA

Can you say CAPTIVE AUDIENCES?

Of course, the Curmudgeon isn't saying any of this makes Fieri a bad businessman. However, in the case of Fourth Street Live, government subsidies to Cordish -- which generally favors chains and routinely dismisses the indie ethos -- always have been disturbing, and in Louisville's case, with an indie food and drink community second to none, watching the soulless local media fawning today over an interloper whose business model is as corporate as fix-is-in ever gets, speaks volumes about integrity ... and its absence.

You'll notice I left one of Fieri's restaurants off the above list.

It's Guy's American Kitchen and Bar in New York City, the only one of his branded establishments not attached to a casino, airport, cruise ship, performance venue or Cordish corporate welfare emporium.

It had a rocky start. Surely you remember the New York Times review of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar in 2012.

As Not Seen on TV: Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square, by Pete Wells (New York Times)

GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Did you notice that the menu was an unreliable predictor of what actually came to the table? Were the “bourbon butter crunch chips” missing from your Almond Joy cocktail, too? Was your deep-fried “boulder” of ice cream the size of a standard scoop?

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature/a> croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are?

I'm rolling on the floor laughing out loud. No, I mean literally.

But forget all that. Can we expect to see good beer at Guy Fieri's Cordish Smokehouse in Louisville? Maybe, though probably not.

Here's the list at Fieri's Vegas location.

Not awful, though evincing no intelligent design. When's the last time you saw a restaurant beer list, chain or indie, that looked genuinely thoughtful? They exist, but can be hard to find.

More humorously, Fieri's much maligned NYC tourist route location promises "an extensive draft beer program featuring signature beers craft brewed for Fieri right in New York City."

Nice, except it would appear this novel twist owes to the fact that Heartland Brewery's CEO is a partner in the Times Square venture, and that's odd, because Heartland Brewery isn't mentioned anywhere on the drinks page.

Embarrassment?

Did A-B InBev tithe more?

"Guy's Beer" NYC selections include Independence Pale Ale, Golden State Lager, Red, White & Blonde, Morgan’s Red Ale and Oatmeal Stout. Also available on the "extensive" tap list: A lone seasonal beer, Angry Orchard Cider and Coors Light.

But don't forget the bottle list: Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller High Life, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Rolling Rock, Good Grain Gluten-Free (Heartland) and Beck’s Non Alcoholic.

Extensive? You be the judge.

Yes, you bet your ass I'm being derisive. Bring on the tour buses. Guy's bringing corporate fluff straight to River City -- and never forget that Cordish is billing Greg Fischer for the privilege.

NaNa Anchor City, too: "Commentary: A River City Shakedown."

Are we Breaking Wind yet?

In Louisville, the out-of-town developer menacingly waves the gun.

In New Albany, we helpfully excise the "armed" segment of the forthcoming robbery by approaching the out-of-town developer, offering the city's wallet, and subsequently hailing the transaction as another successful "public-private partnership."

There may be a slight difference in degree, though I may need a bout of daytime drinking to locate it.

Commentary: A River City Shakedown, by Dan Borsch (WFPL)

The threat: abandonment of two major development projects after tearing down historic buildings and closing a popular night spot. The payoff: $10.4 million in public money. The Mark: Mayor Greg Fischer’s administration.

Edwards Companies, a developer from Columbus, Ohio, has proposed major new projects at the sites of the Phoenix Hill Tavern and Mercy Academy. The company has already cleared the Mercy property.

Now, after city officials agreed to offer the company $7.5 million in tax incentives, Edwards is asking for nearly $3 million more – and suggesting it will abandon both properties without it.

After all, why spend your own money when other people’s money is available?

Thursday Must Read Part 1: Upsides and downsides in a national independent business survey.

A survey of 3,200 independent businesses reveals both good and bad news.

Independent Businesses Report Growing Sales and Hiring, but Policies Tilted in Favor of Large Companies Hold Them Back, by Olivia LaVecchia (Institute for Local Self-Reliance)

A large national survey has found that public support for independent businesses led to brisk sales and a sharp increase in hiring in 2015, but biased policies and other obstacles are limiting their success.

Here's the pivot.

Local First initiatives are part of what’s strengthening independent businesses, the survey found. Two-thirds of respondents in cities with an active Local First, or “buy local,” campaign said that the initiative is having a noticeable positive impact on their business, citing benefits such as new customers and increased loyalty among existing customers.

About one-third of businesses in Local First cities also said that the initiative had led them to become more engaged in advocating on public policy issues, and 44 percent said that the campaign had made elected officials more aware and supportive of independent businesses.

That’s significant because the survey also found that independent businesses are facing a number of challenges, many related to public policy.

Public policy challenges, eh?

In New Albany, one virulent 800-lb public policy gorilla is downtown's one-way street grid, which study after study has proven to be harmful to the interests of small, local, independently-owned businesses.

And yet, more than a few business owners in New Albany either don't wish to "rock" the boat, or worse, to take the time to understand the issues involved.

Think about it: If one-way streets hurt businesses like yours, then they do so 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Conversely, reversion to two-way would help your business -- 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You're fighting a battle with one arm tied behind your back -- by the city itself. The fact that the likes of Bob Caesar lobbies against reform should be the clearest possible indication that reform is both correct and necessary.

Here's another public policy issue.

On the policy side of these challenges, majorities of the businesses surveyed said they would support legislation to cap the dollar value of the economic development tax breaks that companies are eligible to receive, and that they think regulators should more vigorously enforce antitrust laws against dominant companies.

Or, what happens when one type of business (for example, Flaherty and Collins) receives preferential benefits and tax breaks unavailable to others.

K & I: It's like a litmus test for prejudice ... and it's got hazmat, too.

It remains difficult to for me to fathom the disgruntlement in some quarters expressed at renewed calls for the K & I to be converted into a shared use path.

Broken Sidewalk properly reiterates: "It’s time to open the K&I Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists."

A future K & I shared-use path? It's "not a priority for One Southern Indiana" unless Norfolk Southern can move the bridge to River Ridge.

Or this one from 2013.

A report on the history of the K & I Bridge.

... (Steven R.) Greseth's extensive legal research (he readily concedes it is neither legal advice nor legal opinion) succeeds in asking a whole different set of questions, which might be boiled down to this: How many, if any, of a century's worth of legal obligations is the present-day owner of the K & I now obliged to uphold?

Huckabee-voting Louisville East End suburbanites bash the notion of potential expenditures to assist mobility and interconnected neighborhoods, preferring to reserve transportation subsidies for their own auto-centric sprawl.

New Albanians are terrified that ISIS-colored refugees are in Portland, just waiting for a footpath to launch attacks on Dewey Heights.

Portlanders exactly say the same, only in reverse.

All of it remains purely theoretical, and yet already social media experts are debating policing levels, surveillance against chicanery, and all the other details barely mentioned when the Big Four's conversion was lauded as a victory for modernity.

Then there's the entity that should be on the nationalization chopping block, Norfolk Southern. Frequent blog reader A was struck by this passage in Marcus Green's WDRB article.

"Norfolk Southern's K & I Bridge exists today for a single purpose -- to provide safe transport for freight trains over the Ohio River,” (spokesman Dave) Pidgeon said in a statement. “NS generally does not support recreational trails next to active rail lines because of serious safety concerns, and we remain focused on providing safe, efficient and reliable freight transportation to our customers in Louisville and southern Indiana."

The railroad acknowledges that some want the span open to the public, but “ultimately the K&I Bridge is privately owned and operated for the single purpose of safely moving freight trains which carry ... both hazmat and non-hazmat cargo,” Pidgeon said. “We not only have safety concerns about public access along active right-of-way but also serious, prohibitive concerns about security and liability.”

Our reader brings the hammer down:

Perhaps someone could remind Norfolk Southern spokesperson Dave Pidgeon that the “both hazmat and non-hazmat cargo” already passes through both New Albany and Portland and Crescent Hill and St. Matthews and Anchorage ... That's a piss-poor reason to suggest folks can't walk the bridge. The railroad"s "hazmat and non-hazmat cargo” already passes within a very few feet of homes and children's bedrooms along the rail right-of-way.

It would be almost as interesting to know the contents of Norfolk Southern's hazmat cargo as it would the lead content of Indiana American's water supplies.

Broken Sidewalk properly reiterates: "It’s time to open the K&I Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists."

Their pearls of wisdom never cease.

Broken Sidewalk echoes the WDRB piece by Marcus Green, referenced at NAC on February 1. While linking to Green's excellent work last week, I couldn't resist exposing One Southern Indiana's non-stance, with our presumed vanguard asleep at the wheel unless Southern Indiana's auto-centric oligarchy is directly involved.

I suppose we must give some credit to Wendy Dant Chesser some credit for knowing whence her meal ticket originates. It's just a shame so many small and genuinely local independent businesses are duped along the way to help underwrite the propaganda.

But I seem to have digressed.

Back to the uniformly excellent Branden Klayko.

It’s time to open the K&I Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists; Railroad company has stymied efforts to date, but leaders continue conversion push.

... There’s an opportunity to create a shared-use path for cyclists and pedestrians along the Kentucky & Indiana (K&I) Bridge linking Louisville’s Portland neighborhood with the flourishing New Albany. A group of dedicated leaders from Kentucky and Indiana has been steadily pushing to open a former automobile lane closed in the ’70s on the bridge to create a 13-mile waterfront loop between the K&I and its Big Four counterpart.

Interestingly, when this topic was raised on Facebook, it took a turn I wasn't expecting.

Yes! Lets make a connection to the highest violent crime area in Louisville. Great!

To which I replied:

You might be interested to know that Portland residents express qualms for precisely the same reason.

Thus ensued a lengthy back 'n' forth, and for once, I found myself dumbfounded. How could it be that given New Albany's (shall we say) eternally transitional nature, there are people here worried about criminals crossing a pedestrian bridge from Portland?

As for the neglected area around the bridge approach on the New Albany side, surely we're the culpable ones. The city of New Albany has not invested in this area for 40 years, since the automotive lane was shut; when vehicular access was removed, the Vincennes corridor and surrounding neighborhood began dying, and successive City Hall regimes did and said nothing.

A useful K & I would be instrumental in rectifying this, whether via private or public investment, and probably both.

A friend provides the appropriate conclusion.

Maybe we should be build a wall.....REALLY? I don't see a pedestrian bridge drastically increasing crime. I don't see a criminal taking a hike across a pedestrian bridge to break into a downtown New Albany home or establishment. It's not like we are Manhattan over here. There is a bridge, the Sherman Minton, that already gives criminals easy access. I think we need to embrace each other's redevelopment efforts.

Unless, of course, such an embrace is prohibited by ordinance -- or One Southern Indiana.

A future K & I shared-use path? It's "not a priority for One Southern Indiana" unless Norfolk Southern can move the bridge to River Ridge.

Marcus Green provides a comprehensive summary of the issues pertaining to the K & I Bridge, and its future adaptation as a shared-use path linking New Albany and Portland.

The best way to proceed would be the immediate nationalization of Norfolk Southern, the seizure of its owners' assets, and the sowing of salt on their verdant properties.

Barring that, I'm narrowing the focus to One Southern Indiana and its CEO, Wendy Dant Chesser. Remember just a few months ago when Dant Chesser was leading the abortive charge for the auto-centric Regional Cities Initiative lottery, and while doing so, brushing aside eminent domain concerns?

Well, she's been born again.

“Having (the K & I) open would do things for this portion of New Albany and Louisville in the same way that it did for the Big Four Bridge in terms of economic development,” (the Greenway's Shaunna Graf) said.

But the K&I is “not a priority” for One Southern Indiana, the chamber of commerce for Clark and Floyd counties, and isn’t included in its advocacy agenda, said Wendy Dant Chesser, the chamber’s president and CEO.

Dant Chesser said she would like to see a loop across the river completed, but that it’s important to remember that Norfolk Southern owns the bridge.

“We have to approach this as any public project that would want access to private property,” she said. “So it has to be done with respect and the interest of the owner in mind.”

The upshot is this: When it comes to boilerplate corporate welfare for the big regional players, Dant Chesser is unconcerned about the property rights of smallholders. When the topic turns to an economic development idea standing primarily to benefit smallholders with little or no inconvenience to a big regional players, she's concerned about property rights.

This is One Southern Indiana in a rotten, venom-ridden nutshell, and if you're an independent small business owner making membership tithes to 1Si in the hope that some day, some of it might trickle down to you, cutting your wrists now would have the benefit of saving a great deal of time.

To repeat: Green does a great job here. Can we have a reporter yet?

SUNDAY EDITION | Louisville business group revives push for pedestrians, cyclists on K&I Bridge, Marcus Green (WDRB)

"Is keeping a football team more important that putting police officers on the street? More important than giving teachers raises?"

Yesterday there were some football games. I watched none of them. Ditto for basketball games, and the vast majority of baseball games.

It's so much more fun playing games than watching them. My current favorite game is Bait the Party Elder.

There are brain injuries -- but not mine.

In Losing the Rams, St. Louis Wins, by Joe Nocera (New York Times)

Don’t cry for St. Louis, sports fans.

The departure of the Rams to Los Angeles, whence they came two decades ago, is something for the city’s residents to cheer, not bemoan. St. Louis got lucky ...

 ... the economics underpinning the recent deal St. Louis and the State of Missouri tried to put together to keep the Rams would have been financially ruinous. Let’s not be coy about this: St. Louis, a city of fewer than 320,000 people, with a shrinking tax base, simply couldn’t afford to help finance the $1 billion stadium that the Rams’ billionaire owner, E. Stanley Kroenke, was seeking. Its mistake was in trying.

And the truth.

... whatever the deficiencies of the proposal from the city and state, it was more than the city, especially, could bear. It would have broken St. Louis’s back, and quite likely forced cutbacks in service that the city badly needs. And it raises again the question of whether cities should really be in the business of subsidizing sports facilities. Is keeping a football team more important that putting police officers on the street? More important than giving teachers raises?

Of course not. But mayors and governors can’t bring themselves to tell a team good riddance when it threatens to leave. Instead, they move heaven and earth to keep the team — even if, as in the case of St. Louis, they can’t afford it. That’s why the pro sports business model works so well. It relies on the expectation that government officials will panic at the thought of losing a team.

Flaherty and Collins kicks off Break Wind Flats with a boffo map fail.

Jeff Gillenwater reporting from geographically indeterminate New Gahania.

Here's a rendering Flaherty and Collins is using to promote their development on Spring Street in New Albany. Based on the location of the river and downtown Louisville in it, they apparently don't know where Spring Street in New Albany is. Or maybe they don't want others to know.

Previously at NAC:

As the Coyle site is prepped for luxury, city functionaries praise corporate welfare "done right."

Name That Boondoggle Episode 1: The apartments at the Coyle site really should be called ...

Seriously, the "luxury" apartments at the Coyle site will be called The Breakwater. No, really.

Yes, Jeff, we know you're The Luxury Mayor: "Working so hard, to keep you from the poverty."

As the Coyle site is prepped for luxury, city functionaries praise corporate welfare "done right."

As always, it's all about appearance, and never genuine fundamentals.

Construction ready to begin at former Coyle site in New Albany (Morris; N and T)

... "It will bring more spending power downtown," (David) Duggins said. "I don't think we could have picked a better spot. It's really going to be nice looking and done right."

Economic localism: "The $80 Billion Shift We Need Now for Economic Democracy."

We talked about these issues throughout the mayoral campaign.

All too often, community tax dollars benefit the few at the great expense of the many. Our economic development decisions are maintaining a system of inequality.

In a "new economy" how would economic development create real community prosperity?

The executive director of BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) provides an overview with selected curatives.

Doing Better: The $80 Billion Shift We Need Now for Economic Democracy, by Michelle Long (via Huffington Post)

Local independent business owners simply must cease performing the ritualistic Kool-Aid communion with municipal officials who are unable (read: unwilling) to understand these points.

You're simply not being helped by their glib assurances.

You're being hurt.

Here are five ways to kick start the necessary shift, but please, click through and read the entire article.

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Shifting up to $80 billion (the money spent annually on economic development incentives) presents a massive, ready-made opportunity. Doing better would mean new eligibility rules for community economic development incentives. A community's dollars should be used to support its own people, with particular focus on the areas with the greatest need. If we want the majority of people to receive the maximum return on their community's investment then small businesses must be strengthened at every turn. Minority and women ownership should be prioritized to level the playing field. Bigger businesses should be supported in their efforts to transition to employee ownership.

Here are five ways to start the shift tomorrow:

1. Use incentive dollars to instead back local business hubs and networks that are focused on place, health and equity. These systems of support for locally owned businesses nurture local supply chains, enable peers to support each other, and foster the kind of collaboration necessary to make local food distribution viable or renewable energy locally affordable.

2. Re-direct corporate subsidies to organizations that provide technical assistance to micro enterprises. Groups like Rising Tide Capital are adept at strengthening these businesses to create jobs, and they generate nearly $4 in economic impact for every $1 invested. The Association for Enterprise Opportunity has shown that if just one in three microenterprises was strengthened to hire a single employee, the US would be at full employment.

3. Invest in shared infrastructure for local "economies of scale." For example, a foundation in Maine invested in a local grain mill, providing needed processing that made the resurgence of regional grain farmers viable.

4. Purchase land for the community. Agricultural and community land trusts preserve affordability for residents, farmers, and local business owners in contrast to speculative gentrification. Use land banks to bring vacant and blighted lots under the control of a public authority to redevelop the land for productive uses.

5. Support the creation of worker owned businesses, and support larger businesses, particularly those going through founder transitions, to become employee owned through ESOPs. Businesses from Dansko to Eileen Fisher to New Belgium Brewery have traveled this path in recent years. Said New Belgium CEO Kim Jordan, "One of the things that we think is a big societal issue is this widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. And we realized that we had an opportunity to support people owning something that was increasing in value. Shared equity has been an incredibly powerful engine for us."

The Baylor for Mayor meme, October 21: Shifting to localism.

From September 27, 2015:

This is New Albany's economic development challenge: "Developing the Cure for Corporate Welfare."

This is New Albany's economic development challenge: "Developing the Cure for Corporate Welfare."

There are so many relevant points in this article that I'll reprint it in its entirety. While you're reading, bear important points in mind.

• New Albany's local independent business segment has borne the brunt of downtown redevelopment efforts without any substantive "economic development" assistance from City Hall
• Throughout New Albany, local independent businesses have created jobs and value
• The mayor's signature "business of residency" project at the former Coyle site has required millions in TIF subsidies to assist a for-profit developer from elsewhere
• This assistance package to Flaherty and Collins includes the city's first-ever sewer tap-in waivers, which were denied even when IU Southeast requested them for student housing
• When the long anticipated Pillsbury closure was announced, City Hall's response was to offer the multinational General Mills $7 million to stay, a "hail mary" gesture as embarrassing as it was futile
• 40 acres of industrial park property sits idle on the north side of town. 
• City Hall's most recent corporate economic development "success" was helping deliver jobs to Charlestown

Attending ribbon cuttings while only pretending to have been involved in the efforts of local independent businesses, entrepreneurs and developers looks good in a photo op and plays well on social media, but it's little more than play-acting when the city's economic development efforts remain targeted toward corporate welfare and crony capitalism.

Michael Shuman outlines the "cure" in his books, the most recent of which is The Local Economy Solution. We must reorient our strategies to develop our own local economy as a counterweight to the  state-inspired hegemony of River Ridge Commerce Center in Jeffersonville. It has been ordained as the "winner,  and we cannot delude ourselves into thinking we compete with it on the usual subsidy, incentive and abatement terms. We must create and deploy our own rules here, and emphasize what makes us unique.

And it wouldn't hurt to devote bigger ticket economic development monies to infrastructure intended to assist our efforts: Opportunity costs and fiber optic communications: A closer look at Jeff Gahan's luxurious incomprehension.

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Developing the Cure for Corporate Welfare, by Oscar Perry Abello (Next City)

Philadelphians don’t exactly need another reason to love the Reading Terminal Market, the city’s one-hundred-plus-year-old iconic public market, but here it is anyway: The whole place is 100 percent self-financed.

Not only are the tenant vendors local, independent businesses, tenant rents and sales cuts fund 90 percent of the Market’s budget. The rest comes mostly from an annual fundraiser that brings in about $100,000. Contrast that with General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, General Electric, Boeing, Amazon and 42 other companies that received more than $100 million each in state or local incentives from 2007 to 2012, according to an independent study by the New York Times.

The study found that state and local governments gave up $80.4 billion in incentives to “attract and retain” businesses for the purposes of “creating jobs.” It’s a number that author and local economy expert Michael Shuman is sure is actually much higher.

“There’s so many reasons why that is a dumb way of economic development,” Shuman says. “The most important of it is the growing mountain of evidence that the best and more important economic development comes from locally owned business.”

Shuman has written four books on local economies, most recently The Local Economy Solution, which came out in June.

“What I was responding to this time was how there were many groups who are doing good work on local economies, and their first impulse is to try and go out and raise foundation money to support their work, while many economic development departments are still stuck ponying up public dollars for economic development,” Shuman explains, citing the aforementioned New York Times study as well as a study he led himself.

Beginning about eight years ago, Shuman and his colleagues began compiling data on statewide economic development programs in the U.S. Choosing 15 states, largely rural given a secondary focus on food systems, they analyzed the three largest statewide economic development programs in each. Of the 45 programs they studied, 26 were giving less than 25 percent of their incentives to local businesses. Sixteen programs were giving 90 percent or more of incentives to non-local businesses.

And yet, there is “a growing universe of self-financing businesses that were undertaking the functions of economic development,” Shuman says. He calls them “pollinator businesses,” self-financing businesses that serve other businesses, whose mission is about building a great local economic marketplace. Reading Terminal Market is one of them, featured in the book.

The first thing you have to do, Shuman says, if you want to support “pollinator businesses,” is to shut down all of your existing economic development programs that are dedicated to “attract and retain.”

“Those are a dead end,” Shuman asserts. “Then you take some of the savings and perhaps you invest in some local entrepreneurs getting pollinators going. Many of the pollinators that I write about are interested in either helping startups elsewhere get going or deploying some kind of franchise model, so you don’t have to start from scratch on most of these things.”

He categorizes them into five different fields — planning, purchasing, people, partnership and purse pollinators. Purse pollinators, for example, include credit unions like Vancity, in Vancouver, British Columbia, which Shuman features in the book. It’s one of the largest credit unions in North America, with 500,000 members, providing 38,000 local businesses with credit, partnerships and technical assistance. (It’s not in the book, but check out this lending model created by a food co-op and credit union.)

One example of a partnership pollinator model is used by Tucson Originals, a local restaurants’ association in Tucson, Arizona. As one of its services to members, Tucson Originals offers pooled procurement. They survey members annually to find out the top 25 products that every restaurant uses, and then coordinates cumulative purchases from bulk suppliers. It’s a way to give small — and particularly minority-owned — firms a more equal playing field with large corporate chains.

“Many of the entrepreneurs in Tucson Originals are Latino sole proprietors,” Shuman notes. “There’s no conceptual reason why any of these programs, even if the existing ones are not targeted at low-income, or of color, could not be redesigned to do so. In fact, the more challenging the economic circumstances, the more one needs a pollinator design because you basically don’t have the resources to pay for economic development as usual.”

There remain some important kinks to work out with pollinators. “Most of these pollinator models, while they have a theory of self-financing, they haven’t quite done it yet,” Shuman says. For example there’s Reading Terminal Market’s annual fundraiser.

“We also don’t know how well they’re going to survive a crisis, a change of management, a strike, a shortage, whatever,” Shuman says. “I kind of warn people that most of the models that you read about are probably not going to be around in five or 10 years. That’s the bad news.”

“The good news is,” Shuman continues. “People are learning from them, people are adapting models and figuring out what went wrong and do better the next time.” Some of the pollinators Shuman writes about in The Local Economy Solution learned from failures he wrote about in his earlier books.

The bottom line, according to Shuman, is that even at the state and local level, public policy right now is systematically subsidizing big business to the disadvantage of small business. “Cities cannot coherently have strong economic development if they continue to do that,” he says.

Part of the response will have to come from civic engagement, one way or another. Shuman points out a need for transparency about how much incentives go to local versus non-local business might help, or more accountability about how much gets spent in incentives per each job created after the fact.

“Another approach, you might call a libertarian approach,” Shuman says, “Is to just get rid of all of it. I’m deeply sympathetic with that. It’s clean. It gets rid of a lot of corruption in politics.”