And the first thing they do is cut down an enormous healthy tree.

In the final analysis, the local demolish 'n' develop cadre needn't be all that proficient at what they do. They can take down a 100-year-old tree to accommodate "luxury" townhouses with a lifespan of two decades, and it doesn't matter. 

Skill and ability is irrelevant; just learn to read the tea leaves and know exactly when to give the pay-to-play wheel a mighty heave.

Then it's out with the chain saws. 

My personal view? The in-crowd in the festering boil of a dirty river town can go ... nah, never mind. The Pavlov's Dog effect in Nawbany means that I write or say something true, and someone close to me gets an electrical shock. 

Do we even have a Tree Board? 

Redevelopment machinations and those awesomely cute townhouses coming to Vincennes Street where the demolitions just went down.

Illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work, redux: Can't Team Gahan's lickspittles get their damn stories straight?

Earlier:

Scott Wood and Shane Gibson predictably duck the newspaper reporter, leaving deputy mayor Mike Hall to explain ceasing, desisting, and Summit Springs Phase Two work.

Let's take another look at the latest installment of the Gang That Can't Get Their Fibs Straight. Seems their stories are changing by the minute.

UPDATE: Work has stopped in phase two area of Summit Springs, by Danielle Grady (Tom May Hyper Content Generator)

NEW ALBANY — A neighbor of Summit Springs in New Albany is worried that the developer is overstepping boundaries by working in an area of the project that hasn’t received city approval, but the project’s team says that they’re doing everything according to plan.

Summit Springs IN LLC was sent a cease-and-desist letter from New Albany’s plan commission director Scott Wood after workers began clearing trees in April for a new water line that will connect to a hotel.

The hotel is in the first phase of the project, which has already been approved by the city, but the tree removal occurred in a second phase area of the project, which has yet to gain city approval. As a whole, the 60-acre-plus development will contain restaurants, medical/office buildings and a 14-story residential tower.

The letter called for the halting of "all construction activities" in the phase two area.

David Ruckman, the surveyor working on the Summit Springs project, said that Wood verbally rescinded the cease-and-desist letter the day after Summit Springs IN LLC received it. Ruckman said he called Wood and explained that the tree clearings were for a part of the project in phase one.

Hmm. Ruckman didn't deny working in the phase two area, did he? In short, he's commenting in the breach, implying it's okay to work in the unapproved "phase two" area so long as the work benefits phase one -- and no one notices.

Work on the water line resumed as early as April 18, when the subject was discussed at a New Albany Board of Works & Public Safety meeting. But it was on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the New Albany Plan Commission tabled the developer’s phase two application at a meeting, that neighbors noticed that Summit Springs IN LLC was removing trees cut down in April in the phase two area. The developer was moving around trees to stockpile excess dirt from the phase one area, said Ruckman.

Same circular argument. Same violation. Same city non-enforcement.

Wood, who initially directed the News and Tribune to Mike Hall, New Albany's director of City Operations, for comment, later said there is no written document rescinding the cease-and-desist letter.

Fawcett Hill resident Aaron Hellems saw the tree clearing occurring Wednesday and contacted Wood, who told him the cease-and-desist letter was still in effect. Wood confirmed this.

Still, Hall stated in an email late Wednesday that the city was unaware of any violations by the Summit Springs developers.

Wait, is Wood somehow getting his groove back?

He'd best be careful, because to contradict Hall -- the city's chief propagandist and royal court food taster -- might well to bring the wrath of Dear Leader down upon him.

In response to neighbor concerns, construction crews for Summit Springs IN LLC have stopped work in the phase two area anyway, Ruckman said. Construction crews are now stockpiling dirt in the phase one project area. Work should is on hold until developers get through plan commission hearings.

No kidding?

"Now that we're doing what we should have been doing all along until we got caught red-handed," commented Ruckman, "can you please start looking the other way again?"

"I mean, shit -- this fix is in, right? Gahan's got it down. Can't we just get on with it?"

Hall's email also stipulated that the city is not the property owner or developer of Summit Springs, and it said that Wood would be meeting on Thursday with "all parties" involved. Both Hellems and Ruckman said on Thursday that they were not planning to meet with Wood that day. Ruckman did say that he expects to meet with the city and neighbors as the application process for phase two of Summit Springs continues.

Plan commission and board of works members were unable to shed light on the situation. New Albany City Attorney Shane Gibson also did not return a call and email for comment.

Bless Ms. Grady for including this section. A total of at least four or five city functionaries and appointees, and as many as nine or ten, have refused to comment for attribution. There you have it; with bootlickers and sycophants fleeing in all directions, down in flames goes Gahan's protests of transparency.

Again.

Hellems said that Summit Springs IN LLC's actions were part of a pattern of attempting to speed up the development process without going through the proper channels. He pointed to a situation in April 2016 when Wood gave Summit Springs developers permission to cut down trees without obtaining secondary approval. Wood said he was trying to help the developers meet a deadline to cut down the trees before Indiana bats made their home in them.

As we've consistently pointed out, the city was adamantly opposed to Summit Springs, inclusive of first and second phases, right up until it wasn't.

Then Hall orchestrated the press releases, and voila -- the city was partnering with the developers, who could not have achieved anything profitable without the city's eager TIF-impelled hillside road-building.

The fixes, corruption and kickbacks.

Aren't you getting tired of them?

#FireGahan2019

Scott Wood and Shane Gibson predictably duck the reporter, leaving deputy mayor Mike Hall to explain ceasing, desisting, and illicit Summit Springs Phase Two work.

The little people?

They're the ones who can't afford to play the game -- right, Scott?

Did the developer of Phase 2 at the Summit Springs Luxury Mudslide Strip Mine Fun Park violate a cease and desist order yesterday?

If isn't as if we don't know which side the city's on. Hall himself probably wrote the press release about Team Gahan partnering with Kelley Greed Inc. on this bountiful environmental catastrophe.

As such, does anyone really think the city is interested in the enforcement of agreements and covenants when it'll be primary election day, like, tomorrow?

Work is happening in phase 2 of Summit Springs. Should it be? by Danielle Grady (Tom May's Rolltop Desk)

NEW ALBANY — A neighbor of Summit Springs in New Albany is worried that the developer is overstepping boundaries by working in an area of the project that hasn’t received city approval, but the project’s team says that they’re doing everything according to plan.

Summit Springs IN LLC was sent a cease-and-desist letter from New Albany’s plan commission director Scott Wood after workers began clearing trees in April for a new water line that will connect to a hotel.

The hotel is in the first phase of the project, which has already been approved by the city, but the tree removal occurred in a second phase area of the project, which has yet to gain city approval. As a whole, the 60-acre-plus development will contain restaurants, medical/office buildings and a 14-story residential tower.

The letter called for the halting of "all construction activities" in the phase two area ...

Did the developer of Phase 2 at the Summit Springs Luxury Mudslide Strip Mine Fun Park violate a cease and desist order yesterday?

Photo credit: Tyler Stewart.

On Tuesday evening, the Plan Commission decided not to appear unseemly.

New Albany Plan Commission: Phase 2 of Summit Springs needs more detail, by Danielle Grady (Tom May Mimeograph Machine)

NEW ALBANY — Plans to start a phase two of the Summit Springs commercial and residential development are not detailed enough for New Albany’s plan commission yet. At a Tuesday meeting, the voting body tabled requests by the developers to consider plans for a 14-story residential tower and more on top of a hill overlooking State Street.

The usual suspects yawned.

David Ruckman, a land surveyor for the project, said that the request from the plan commission for more details was “expected.”

“It’s a process,” he said.

Had Ruckman said, "it's just a game," he'd have disqualified himself for duty by telling the truth, and on Wednesday, less than 12 hours after the meeting, there were questions about the willingness of developers to observe a cease and desist order pertaining to clearing land for the next stage of the environmental atrocity.

The Green Mouse was told:

A neighbor on Fawcett Hill emailed us today saying he saw a dump truck and a flatbed truck hauling something up Fawcett Hill. Some of us have called Scott Wood. Scott said he sent out Larry Summers. Says they were removing old dead trees. When asked if they were removing more live trees, Scot said he "didn't know." If they are, the construction firm is violating the cease and desist order. Also, did you see the picture News and Tribune took? It shows the hill sliding down behind Taco Bell.

It's a wonderful photo, indeed (see above).

At a time when public housing residents face daily insults from their colonial overlords as a prelude to demolition, Team Gahan brags about million-dollar condos in the middle of a strip mine.

Amid the blather and propaganda, we can be sure of one truthful eventuality: the volume of stormwater runoff coming from Summit Springs will be matched only by the amount of kickbacks flowing into the mayor's campaign piggy bank.

A 2016 reprise: "High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places."

They're in it for the money: Team Gahan and its Plan Commission's cowardly and abject capitulation to the Kelleys and their Summit Springs development atrocity continues tonight.

Plan Commission to consider phase two of the Summit Springs Kelley Enrichment cluster muck development atrocity.

Buffalo Dis-Trace: White folks dress up like their bison-killing ancestors as we glance at Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz's big role in Gahan campaign finance.

They're in it for the money: Team Gahan and its Plan Commission's cowardly and abject capitulation to the Kelleys and their Summit Springs development atrocity continues tonight.

As we've noted previously, Summit Springs would not be possible without taxpayer subsidies for its infrastructure.

Plan Commission to consider phase two of the Summit Springs Kelley Enrichment cluster muck development atrocity.

That's because it is a development that shouldn't happen in the first place.

The city opposed Summit Springs until Dear Leader reasoned that kickbacks from those entities benefiting from the development's approval far outweighs assurances given to neighbors or environmental consequences.

Consequently, the greed-driven monetization of Summit Springs proceeds apace, and the spoils stand to be divvied like they always are, because at present, in Year Seven of Bubonic Gahanism, there's little justice on tap in New Albany.

But there's lots and lots of money.

In future years, Summit Springs will become symbol of greed and corruption, forever inseparable from Jeff Gahan and those sycophantic fat cats, vendors and contractors feeding him scented grapes while stuffing their pockets as the mayor is fanned with palm fronds, lounging on the royal chaise lounge.

Too bad about Scott Wood. Then again, in a former age when integrity still mattered, he'd have resigned in principle long ago over Gahan's Summit cash flip. Integrity, trees, ethics -- in Clear Cut City, they all form perfect, orderly queues to await the chainsaw's ritualistic hum. 

Phase 2 of Summit Springs appearing before New Albany Plan Commission Tuesday, by Danielle Grady (Best Loved Tom May Columns Dot Com)

NEW ALBANY — Phase two of the 60-acre plus Summit Springs development will go before the New Albany Plan Commission Tuesday night for preliminary approval.

The fix appears to be cemented tightly into place.

A New Albany planning and zoning staff report gives the plan commission assurance that they can favorably recommend the PUDD to the New Albany City Council, which will also be voting on the rezoning.

Of course, the Kelleys -- a local synonym for avarice -- have already helpfully started the necessary process of deforestation. Money can't grow on trees, you know.

The plan commission meeting will take place at 7 p.m. in the Assembly Room (Room 331) of the City-County Building at 311 Hauss Square.

Documents show that the Kelleys were sent a cease-and-desist letter in April from the city telling them to stop cutting down trees in the Summit Springs phase two area. In 2016, the city faced the wrath of neighbors when they cut trees from the hills before phase one of the PUDD was approved.

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

Develop New Albany welcomes Summit Springs
to the donor list.

Team Gahan has developed its own peculiar localized variant of Newspeak, with inflections borne of hunker-down-low bunker origins.

 ... George Orwell explains that Newspeak usage follows most of the English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning.

In Orwell's novel 1984, the term "doublethink" is introduced; when paired with Newspeak, the result is "doublespeak," defined here by political economist Edward S. Herman.

What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program.

The drill has become familiar by now.

For instance, to "improve housing conditions and supportive services" means earmarking half of public housing units for demolition without a coherent plan for rehousing.

Tireless "efforts to improve the tree canopy" means flashing a nice stock photo like this ...

... as scrubbed-clean Disneyesque cover for lubing up the chainsaws to facilitate tree removal, clearcutting and deforestation. Perhaps the finest example of Gahan's skills at doublespeak occurred in 2016, when hundreds of trees were cleared to build a "greenway" safe for speeding motorists.

Residents of Mt. Tabor Road were informed yesterday (December 7) that lumbering begins on Monday, December 11.

Oddly, the fliers were stuck in mailboxes sans stamps, which I'd been told was strictly illegal during my run for mayor in 2016. The Board of Works already had picked and grinned its way through approval for the latest round of destroying the tree canopy to save it.

ASK THE BORED: It's Mt. Tabor Road's turn to be pillaged as our lumberjack fetishist mayor readies another round of clear-cutting -- for the sake of the cars, of course.

It's been four months since the mayor triumphantly announced what amounts to a survey of previously sawed stumps; having felled hundreds and perhaps thousands of trees during the course of his Ceausescu-esque TIF and Green(!)way projects, he'd now prove there was the beginning of the precursor to an embryonic "master" plan to reforest the city by 2065 or so ...

It can't be denied that Jeff Gahan is remaking the city in his own image. What could possibly go wrong when mendacity, narcissism and mediocrity are chief characteristics of the model?

The simple fact is we've all become numb to Jeff Gahan's signature Shade Eradication Program.

What Judge Cody wants, Judge Cody gets -- with valet efficiency. The remainder of us wait years for our stumps to be ground and replantings to occur.

Meanwhile, Gahan's shadeless semi-walkability proceeds apace. It's an exquisitely banal dictatorship ... but it's our exquisitely banal dictatorship, with anchor cuff links and everything.

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

Surely not since the founding Scribners set out to clear land for the civic forerunner of present-day New Gahania have so many trees fallen as during the reign of Jeffrey I.

He insists more trees have been planted than cut, though the documentary evidence of such remains hidden safely within the labyrinthic bowels of Lawyer Gibson's Information Protection Program.

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

Surely not since the founding Scribners set out to clear land for the civic forerunner of present-day New Gahania have so many trees fallen as during the reign of Jeffrey I.

He insists more trees have been planted than cut, though the documentary evidence of such remains hidden safely within the labyrinthic bowels of Lawyer Gibson's Information Protection Program.

Witness the information I asked of the Tree Board in April of 2016. Sixteen months later it presumably reposes on a shelf in Gibson's bookless study, gathering dust, right there next to the remaining Bicentennial coffee table tomes that Bob Caesar insists were sold out to an eager public at $50 a pop, later to be handed out like lollipops at ribbon cuttings even as Caesar and associates denies the existence of any records pertaining to the Bicentennial Commission's activities.

Our last comprehensive survey of Gahan's urban canopy impotence came on March 7 of this year.

ASK THE BORED: You can't always get tree stumps zapped when you want, but if you're a V.I.P. -- well, you get what you need.

(Always) bear in mind that even as Jeff Gahan's "parks and recreation" fetish -- which always was more about power than production -- has occupied a disproportionate place in his agenda, hundreds of trees outside the boundaries of his suburban-flavored parks have fallen. Some were dead, others living.

A huge number were brought down for the noble cause of making a Greenway auto-friendly.

During a time of enhanced urban heat island effect, and as the mayor plays his oblivious daily shell game about "walk-ability," which can be translated as "drive-ability," seeing as he hasn't once grasped what it really means, these (shade) trees generally have not been replanted until the cost can be shifted elsewhere, as with grandiose street reconstruction projects financed by the federal government.

In short, under Gahan, the urban tree canopy has received far more contempt than scant attention.

Naturally, with mayor pattern baldness now prevalent throughout the city, the time has come to unleash the propaganda commissariat to issue stirring declarations of victory amid the stumps.

City Receives Grant for Tree Inventory to Promote Long-Term Urban Canopy Strategy

In January of 2017, the City of New Albany received a $20,000 matching grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry, as part of the 2016 Community and Urban Forestry Assistance grant project.

Meanwhile, proof again that books don't line any of their shelves.

Scientists Discover Yet Another Reason Cities Need More Trees, by Katharine Schwab (Co.Design)

Using a computer model, scientists quantified how trees impact local weather and save energy.

Trees make neighborhoods look beautiful and feel safe. They can also play a key role in reducing the impact of wind in cities.

That might seem inconsequential at first. But wind can affect things like humidity, temperature, how pleasant it is to walk around outside, and even the pressure gradient between the interior and exterior of buildings. When there’s a larger gradient, more air from outside will enter a building through small gaps and openings, requiring greater energy consumption to heat or cool the building. Researchers from the University of British Columbia created a computer model showing that when there are no trees in a neighborhood, that pressure gradient goes up by a factor of four. Because wind pressure can be the root cause for about a third of a building’s energy consumption, the finding means that if there are no trees around, the cost to maintain a building’s temperature can rise. The researchers estimate that trees in the Vancouver neighborhood they modeled save 15% on your energy bill in the summer and 10% in the winter.

Here's your bibliography.

Got any readers down there in the Down Low Bunker?

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A SELECTION OF PREVIOUS ARTICLES

ASK THE BORED: Years and years later, finally those stumps in the verge have been pulped.

Unheard of in New Albany: "Going forward, I will be more sensitive to the spectrum of concerns regarding trees."

At least this time Pinocchio felled his OWN tree.

"Eventually there'll be a plan to replant" the clear-cut tree cover, but of course no one can say what or when that might be.

Politics, good judgment, social media, and why I refrained from voting in the Floyd Circuit Judge race.

2016 council budget hearing: Money for the Tree Board to cut trees, or plant them?

Placing a dollar value on the services that street trees perform.

Unlike New Albany, "The people of Somerville, Massachusetts really, really care about trees."

New Albany's Tree Board -- statute, staff and board members.

Whatever happened to the Tree Board, anyway?

Unheard of in New Albany: "Going forward, I will be more sensitive to the spectrum of concerns regarding trees."

From the article.

Like Hee Haw's Grandpa Jones always said, truth is stranger than fact. Let's just hope Mayor Gahan doesn't hire this Colby Cooper fellow to helm our Treeless Board.

Gentlemen, start your chainsaws ...

Mobile official apologizes for Christmas tree at Trump rally removed from public park, by John Sharp (Alabama Dot Com)

The chief of staff to Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson issued a public apology Sunday for his responsibility in having a cedar tree cut down at Public Safety Memorial Park Friday and transported to Ladd-Peebles Stadium as a prop during President-elect Donald Trump's rally on Saturday.

At Summit Springs work session tonight, council will get an itsy bitsy glimpse into City Hall's smoke-filled secret planning chamber.

6:30 p.m., tonight, council chamber. Regular meeting at 7. Soothing gin available at The Exchange, pre-game.

Just plain citizen Aaron Hellems continues to perform a valuable public service by attempting to make transparent the backroom dealings that led to this project's surprise re-appearance, which for most people became evident only when the hillside was denuded of trees earlier this spring.

Shortly thereafter, City Hall triumphantly announced its participation in yet another private developer enrichment project, Summit Springs (NOW WITH HOTEL!!!), and therein lies the biggest question of all, at least for me.

We, the city, spent in excess of two years -- more like three -- battling these developers in court over issues pertaining to our ability as a municipal entity to establish rules about developments like Summit Springs.

We, the city, moved the court case to Scott County, far from prying eyes. The court case was settled (circumstances as yet unknown -- that transparency thing again) circa October of 2015, and mere months later, down came the trees, and up went the plaque proclaiming we, the city's tremendous achievement in public/private partnering with the developers to snarl State Street traffic for generations to come -- not to mention stormwater system overloads and a host of other questions not subject to public review or participation.

Here's what inquiring minds want to know:

Given the time it  takes to engrave plaques and overhaul multi-million dollar project plans, was one arm of City Hall fighting Summit Springs even as another arm was fluffing it?

The answer should be obvious. Waiting for Jeff Gahan to answer this question honestly? Don't, because he cannot and will not. He won't come to tonight's meeting. However, at the ribbon cutting, he'll be standing center stage, fundraising for That State Senate Campaign in 2018.

Summit Springs work session coming soon, by Jerod Clapp (Utica Solidarity Gazette)

NEW ALBANY — Getting some answers on the process and what's coming forward for the Summit Springs development off State Street is the aim of a city council work session Monday night.

Since the clear cutting of trees behind home on Fawcett Hill Road, which backs up to the proposed development, Aaron Hellems has raised his issues with the city in terms of why those trees were cut down, how it was pushed through by a single city official and looking for assurances that the city will honor laws regarding PUDDs in the future.

He spoke at the last city council meeting on May 19 about the issues. However, he said he's not heard from anyone involved in the development since.

"Unfortunately, nobody from the city has reached out to discuss this," Hellems said. "Likewise, the developers haven't tried to contact us, either. [The city council] said when you come back, you need to know what you want. It's not so much about me as it is the neighborhood."

He said part of the issue is how the clear cutting was approved. He said those sorts of decisions require second approval by local governing agencies under the law, but that didn't happen with those trees. Scott Wood, director of the city plan commission, made that decision in April. He said there was a deadline to meet to cut the trees down before Indiana Bats began roosting in them, which would have delayed the project for about another year.

The heroic Statue of Disdain, coming soon to a hillside near us.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

VIDEO: Summit Springs development and roadway proposals, Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission, Tuesday 12 April 2016.

FLASKBACK: What I wrote on the occasion of Summit Springs ... nine years ago.

City Hall approves heroic "Statue of Disdain" branding symbol for Summit Springs.

FLASKBACK: What I wrote on the occasion of Summit Springs ... nine years ago.

From council coverage on February 5, 2007 ... a little over 9 years ago, when the first iteration of the Summit Springs property development bubbled to the surface. Are we making "progress' yet?

---

The more rope he is provided, the bigger Larry’s slippery noose grows.

Z-07-01
Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances New Albany, Indiana, Title XV, Chapter 156 (Docket P-12-06: Pat & Pam Kelly – Summit Springs Development)
Crump 1

Discussion of this, the latest in a series of divisive green field development projects, is my not-so-dark-horse choice to prompt a shouting match, either between citizens, council members, or both.

In essence, local zoning authorities use existing sets of criteria to rate such projects, which pass to the council for final approval, and are considered by the council using entirely different sets of criteria (read: political and electoral). The predictable result is a wide divergence of philosophical intent, and a striking absence of contextual continuity from one debate to the next.

With open space at an ever-increasing premium within the city limits of New Albany, but numerous adjacent tracts available for redevelopment and the type of adaptive reuse that we advocate here on a weekly basis, it continues to be frustrating that the square-pegged development logic of the “limitless” exurb so often is forcibly jammed into what are urban holes of decidedly different shape and ideal usage.

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem is the community’s inability – perhaps its unwillingness – to unify for the pursuit and maintenance of common development goals. To reframe our zoning standards according to a futuristic perspective, and to step up enforcement of standards already determined, is to set goals that are consistent with a principled recognition of changing circumstances, and to plan how these bars can be cleared for overall betterment.

As with so many other issues, I’m entirely unsure how we get past the enmity of generations and eliminate the personal animus that tends to improperly provide the backdrop to most of the council’s zoning decisions. It is clear that a working compromise between certain development mentalities structured to transform corn fields into asphalt, and those addressing the city’s pressing need to meet the demands of a far different – not better, not worse, just different – target market for an urban experience downtown, must be achieved … and soon.

Like so many previous proposals that have come before the council for consideration, it is likely that the Summit Springs project will be subject to the spasmodic paradigms of the body’s ward-heeling faction, and that it will be approved or rejected in the lamentable absence of a genuine community debate over developmental standards. Where the coin will drop is anyone’s guess, as it always is with this group.

VIDEO: Summit Springs development and roadway proposals, Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission, Tuesday 12 April 2016.

The topic is Summit Springs, a huge hilltop property development off State Street, which apparently began forward motion (probably downhill) only after the resolution of a two-year-long lawsuit undertaken by the property owners against the city, which was resolved last October.

As no one outside the down-low bunker knows what the resolution of the lawsuit stipulated, it's anyone's guess, although this snippet of the development's enabling city council ordinance way back in 2008 (Z-01-18, I believe) contains a very important nugget.

Needless to say, no such secondary review has occurred, but a hillside has been stripped clean and the city has agreed to TIF a cliff-clinging road. The rest, as was repeated so often today, is merely the detail of responsible, civic due diligence by the very same design and engineering suspects as always.

The royal houses of Europe learned these lessons the hard way. From the newspapers:

New details revealed in disputed N.A. project, by Lexy Gross (C-J)

Favorable vote moves New Albany hotel development forward; Board gives OK to road extension work, by Chris Morris (Clark Chronicle)

---

The following four videos are from the Redevelopment Commission meeting of Tuesday, April 12. I'm the first to admit that I'm new at iPhone videos, but since the most recent RC minutes are several months old, I thought something is better than nothing. I exhausted available storage space just as former councilman John Gonder brilliantly spoke, and also missed the unanimous commission vote in favor of the road.

Of course, no road, no project. Many approvals are ahead, and maybe the property owners will surprise us and actually follow the letter of the eight-year-old law.

Speakers in these videos include commission members and representatives of the development company hired by property owners Patrick and Pam Kelley. The last of these videos is Aaron Hellems, who spoke against the project. There'll be more to say about this, but for now ... it's something.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jeff Gahan's cloak-and-dagger Redevelopment Backscratching Commission will consider the future of Summit Springs, a bizarre hilltop commercial development off State Street that has been turned down more often than I was during prom season back in '77.

And yet following the late 2015 resolution of a lawsuit against the city, the controversial project has returned to life and is being warmly embraced by Team Gahan, which has resolved to TIF-Gift this for-profit private development monstrosity with an access road somehow tacked to the hillside, requiring a feat of engineering last witnessed when we spent $3 million on Bob Caesar's Silver Hills driveway.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

As noted yesterday, the Green Mouse has found a disgruntled informant close to the top. As information comes in, it will be published here.

---

What can be done to stop this environmental disaster of Gahan-ic proportions?

Up on my floor, we call Summit Springs “Schisty Springs.” As for what can be done to stop it, it's the same old story. You have to register your viewpoint.

You can inundate city government with calls expressing your dissatisfaction with this planned development and the secretive means it has been thrust upon us. 

The main number for the city building is 812-948-5333. Ask to speak to the mayor’s office, the City Plan Commission, and Redevelopment. You are also strongly urged to contact your district city council person and each at-large member. If you are feeling particularly ornery and feisty, express your discontent and insist on satisfactory answers to your questions.

While you’re at it, email them as well so there’s a paper trail. 10, 15, or 20 calls in a day is enough to get anyone’s attention. This is not just about being a nuisance … it’s about holding our public officials accountable and making sure they follow the law.

However, good luck in trying to reach these city officials. Judging from the past, I fear they may already be in hiding trying to avoid the fallout of this latest debacle.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

On Tuesday, Jeff Gahan's handpicked Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission will consider the future of Summit Springs, a hilltop commercial development off State Street. The city's TIF Gift to this latest monstrosity is to be road tacked to the hillside.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

The Green Mouse has found a disgruntled informant close to the top. As information comes in, it will be published here.

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Where did the trees go?

A developer has decided to place a hotel and other businesses on top of that steep hill, and apparently, the trees were in the way.

When did this get approved?

It didn’t. Well…kinda.

It’s a little confusing unless you are a Krafty lawyer. The property owners have been trying to develop that hill since 2003. Most recently, in 2012, the proposed plan failed to gain support from City Council. However, the night City Council was to vote on it, the property owners withdrew the plan.

A couple months later, the property owners returned with the intention of reviving a plan from 2008. This particular plan had received primary approval from the Plan Commission and approval from City Council in 2008. However, because the property owners did not obtain secondary approval from the Plan Commission within 18 months as stated in city ordinance, the 2008 plan was no longer valid.

Now, the property owners must have known this. Otherwise, why would they go through the trouble and cost of getting another plan approved?

Since the property owners couldn’t get the needed votes from the 2012 City Council, they needed to devise a scheme to bypass City Council … enter the 2008 plan. They took the 2008 plan before the Board of Zoning Appeals but the Board saw through the scheme despite being threatened with a lawsuit. The property owners held true to their promise and sued the City of New Albany and the Board of Zoning Appeals.

This is where the story becomes unclear.

The city’s attorney, Stan Robison, requested a change of venue which ultimately moved the proceedings to Scott County. The local reporter (Daniel Suddeath) who had been covering the proposed development left the News and Tribune. Any and all coverage of this news story was non-existent during this time until now, when the hill has been stripped bare and the property owners want to build a road.

Whatever happened in the courtroom was clearly in the property owners’ favor. So, when did this plan gain approval? In 2008, by the city’s then Plan Commission and City Council, with the assistance of a judge at some point in the last two years. All of this was done without the property owner ever filing and getting approval for a secondary plan that would provide the details of the proposed development, which breaks city ordinance. So, it was not approved using the process set forth by the city.

How wonderful it is to be above the law. I wonder what else has been done without proper approval ... wait, don't ask me to answer THAT one.

Whatever happened to the Tree Board, anyway?

The city's web site says that a Tree Board exists.

Tree Board

• David Barksdale
• Adam Dickey
• Shelle England
• John Gonder
• Annie Savino
• Claudia Shrake

At least two of these board members (England, Savino) no longer live in New Albany, and John Gonder lost his seat on the council. Perhaps the web site has not been updated.

On numerous occasions when trees have been removed, the following being examples that spring immediately to mind ...

Street tree removals
Bicentennial Park
Main Street Improvement Project
Thomas Street sidewalks
Beach Mold & Tool expansion
Summit Springs project off State Street
Greenway project

... we've asked how the Tree Board was involved, and whether the Tree Board was involved, and the answer we've received more often or not (when an answer is forthcoming, which is seldom) is that um, maybe, although we'll have to check.

If you can locate the Tree Board, please let us  know. We have a tremendous concrete- and asphalt-induced Urban Heat Island problem in metro Louisville, of which New Albany is part.

How many trees has Team Gahan pulled down since 2012?

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Greenway timbering east of the (former?) boat club.

It's odd.

In 2015, the Green Mouse was told that after years of legal efforts, the owner of the property where the New Albany Boat Club has been squatting all this time finally succeeded in displacing it.

Yesterday I saw a few vehicles at the boat club, and a dumpster being filled. The club's docks are stacked a couple hundred yards away. Is the club coming back? The city undertook eminent domain proceedings against this very same property owner, whose land extends beyond the flood wall and includes the boat club and right of way for the Greenway project.

If the boat club is coming back, it  can only be at the behest of the city. But why?

Meanwhile, a whole slew of healthy, mature trees have been cut. We now know the excuses reasons for this: The Greenway master plan said so, and the timbering had to come before the bats in JOhn Rosenbarger's belfry begin nesting. Has any previous mayor felled as many trees as Jeff Gahan?

And do we or don't we have a Tree Board?

The Green Mouse muses on the Greenway, eminent domain lawsuits, squatting and the New Albany Boat Club.

Market, Elm -- whatever. After all, they're both one-way streets.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Team Gahan can't install a crosswalk at Main and W. 1st, and then there's this.

The fact that the area has already been timbered doesn't bode well for New Albany rubber-stamp Redevelopment Commission ...

... to give the project's TIF road a thumbs-down, because of course all of it would have been arranged in the back corridors long before the rest of us knew anything.

You know, like an iceberg.

When the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal is finished, do you think the Hague would let us borrow it for a few months? Trust me, it won't take long, and they can have it right back.

Hotel, development slated for State Street in New Albany; Redevelopment commission to consider request Tuesday, by Chris Morris (10 Reasons Why Clark County Rocks)

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany Redevelopment Commission will consider a request to construct a road in order for a new development, which would include a hotel, to be constructed on the land behind Burger King and next to Home Depot in the 2200 block of State Street.

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan said the hotel being planned for the area is a Fairfield Inn and Suites. There would be other new development near the hotel which would likely include a medical facility and restaurants. He said the land was already approved for a Planned Unit Development.

Trees were cleared from the land recently in order to meet the state's April 1 deadline, due to bat and bird nests.

Trees 1: "Thomas Street now looks like a war zone, devoid of life, beauty, and charm."

Still more Rosenbarger deforestation.

Part 2
Part 3

That's right: It's deja vu all over again.

Over the weekend, a conversation started at the Facebook group called New Albany Indiana, which is an excellent portal for local news and events.

A few neighbors who live on or near Thomas Street are upset because trees were cut down as part of the sidewalk replacement project there, and (stop me if you've heard THIS one before) they received neither forewarning nor an opportunity to offer an opinion on the topic.

And some of them are steamed. If for any reason you cannot view the page, here is a sampling of the comments. In fact, one of them composed and shared a "jeer" for the newspaper.

a JEER to the city of New Albany (or whoever is responsible) -

Thomas Street now looks like a war zone, devoid of life, beauty, and charm. Thank you (NOT!) for cutting down all of our trees. Some trees have been taken care of meticulously by their owners - beautiful, Bradford pear trees. Trees where the owners always had them trimmed. Trees that just had $600 spent on them a few months ago for trimming. Trees that are now pulverized.

Trees that are good for us, good for the environment, added shade, added beauty, added value to our homes and our neighborhood.

This was totally NOT necessary. This neighborhood is upset.

Cue the annoyed, as follows.

• Why did they cut down the trees
• Good question.....
• They were NOT all diseased ... our neighbors had planted beautiful pear trees along the side of their house (corner of Culbertson and Thomas) - they FAITHFULLY had them trimmed and kept them beautiful!!! In fact, just a couple of months ago they paid out $600 for them to be trimmed (which they did every year). They were NOT diseased. Our neighborhood looks TERRIBLE now!!!! Thomas Street used to look like a beautiful lane with the trees. Now it looks like a war zone.!!!!
• New Sidewalks were put in on our other streets and few to no trees were cut down. Getting new sidewalks is a lousy excuse. I have lived here for 30 years and it looks TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!! I am so glad someone put this on here, because I have been prepared to write a letter to the Tribune and put a call into the Mayor's office. This is one, VERY unhappy New Albany resident. We NEEDED those trees. They are good for the environment. They are good for our home values. They added beauty to this ugly, cruel world of ours. I. AM. NOT. HAPPY.!!!!!
• Oh, and just one MORE thing - when the sidewalks were being put in earlier, the jack hammers were so loud and so hard, it literally shook our houses - and caused new cracks in our neighbor's house!!! This may not be one of the ritzy, hotsy-totsy neighborhoods, but we have VERY nice older homes with an abundance of character (how many of YOU have seven stained glass windows, cedar lined window seats, beveled glass in your windows and mirrors, a built-in Belknap ice box in your kitchen)....but we take pride in our neighborhood and we have the BEST neighbors!!!
• Same thing happened on Main Street - 72 trees (my count) were cut down in order to make New Albany a more 'walkable' city. Maybe it's just me but I like my walk in the shade of those beautiful trees. I'll vote for the neighbor's cat before I vote for Gahan.
• (I gently rebutted the preceding: "Let's be emphatic: the Main Street project was about beautification (according to a solitary top-down $$$ definition) and not about walkability. Street trees are an essential component of walkability. Love it or hate it, the notion of walkability is about infrastructure design, not beautification."
• New Albany took a third of my front yard to widen the road and put sidewalks in. Crime is up, traffic of school buses all day long (choking us to death when on front porch) and the sidewalks look like maybe they got ripped off by a low ball bidder, and last but not least, they tore up my driveway and never repaired it. My driveway is now washing away and will cost me thousands to get it redone. New Albany also fined us $250 for having our trash sitting too close to our privacy fence. They said it was a fire hazard. Yes, New Albany loves their tax payers. I can tell.
• This also happened to the beautiful shade trees in front of the National Cemetery on Ekin. I was also told they were diseased trees....ridiculous!!!!
• Many of them were beautiful and well maintained. Now, this street - which needs all the help it can get- looks plain U.G.L.Y. and very non-inviting.
• Dead trees are one thing. Diseased trees fall within the same category. Beautiful trees that are serving many purposes, all positive, ....quite another. Seems as if someone decided that this was blighted property.

If Jeff Gahan allergic to transparency?