City council déjà vu ... could this anti-littering ordinance be the dream that might come true?

Last evening's anti-littering ordinance is all well and good, but lest we forget, déjà vu is more than just a strip club in Louisville.

Definition of déjà vu

1
a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time
b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before

Despite a blond, swept-back mane all his own, Fonda looks startlingly like his father, Henry … . He even moves like his father, only dispelling the eerie feeling of déjà vu when he opens his mouth. — Peter Biskind

2
: something overly or unpleasantly familiar: "The team's poor start to the season was déjà vu for its long-suffering fans."

Ah, the memories. Back in 2013, Greg Phipps heroically tackled porch fridges.

Panhandling in the middle of the street about to be abolished. That and porch furniture.

As for the ordinance ridding the city of "indoor" furniture and various appliances arranged tastefully (although usually otherwise) on porches, I'm mostly down with the notion, although (a) it's yet another aesthetic Band-Aid that addresses symptoms, rather than the fundamental rot of slumlordism, and (b) if there's any one thing we've learned during the past decade, such a Band-Aid is meaningless without concrete enforcement plans. I'm told the council discussed enforcement at its work session last week, and that's a positive sign.

Can anyone recall an instance of porch furniture ordinance enforcement?

Thursday's littering Band-Aid fits precisely the same pattern. It addresses symptoms, not fundamentals, and it will be meaningless without equitable, consistent enforcement ... and it's the latter that invariably stalls, if not every last time, then just about always.

Later this afternoon, I hope to link readers to a follow-up about this week's most compellingly New Gahanian story: Warren's sad Board of Works social research meltdown: "Jeff Gahan’s appointees could use a refresher course in due process. After all, it is a tenet of representative government and basic justice."

New Albany City Council approves stronger litter ordinance, by Erin Walden (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — New Albany City Council took major strides to make the city, as one council member put it, an “overall cleaner city” Thursday night.

The governing body passed a litter ordinance that imposes much heavier fines for littering, structured to make citizens think twice before dropping a cigarette butt, ditching a bag of trash instead of paying for a trash service or dumping an appliance.

The new ordinance is structured around the type of litter, proximity to a natural water source or storm drain, amount of litter and if the individual is a repeat offender.

A styrofoam cup can carry a $100 fine, a hypodermic needle or obscene magazine up to a $1,000.

The heftiest possible fine is $8,000.

Council member Al Knable introduced the ordinance, explaining that he was told both the police department and mayor’s office were behind it.

A Band-Aid will do, so a relieved Bob Caesar takes down his GoFundMe page for Spring Street Hill.

"Wait," said Councilman Caesar. "I've got a whole garage filled with paving stones, and we can use them to patch the hole until the GoFundMe thing takes off."

Below (courtesy of Al Knable) are views of the before and after.

Meanwhile ...

Mother Nature called. Wants her planning and engineering credentials back. Says to shove your campaign kickbacks.

Without cooking classes or reality TV shows to confuse it, the newspaper actually provides coverage.

Sinkhole closes Spring Street Hill in New Albany; Repair may be completed by end of week, by Chris Morris (Clark County Jailhouse Compendium)

NEW ALBANY — Dr. Al Knable admits being a “pretty observant guy,” which may have helped prevent a car accident or injury along a section of Spring Street Hill on Sunday.

Knable, an At-large member of the New Albany City Council, said he had been watching a section of the hill for about two weeks. He said he noticed it Sunday morning, and two hours later said it had opened up “a little more.” He called the New Albany Street Department Director Mickey Thompson who Knable praised for his prompt attention to the issue. The road was quickly closed.

The sinkhole turned out to eventually be four feet wide by six foot deep, Knable said.

Knable said “it’s an unspoken fear” for the people who travel the road regularly to be observant and to look out for possible shifts or sinkhole. The road was closed for several weeks a few years ago due to a cave in, but that was in a different section, Knable said.

Engineers inspected the area and determined that there was a small crack in the culvert running underneath the road, according to a release from Mike Hall with the mayor’s office. Water began to filter through the crack, pulling the soil with it. Eventually, this caused the asphalt to recede and give out, causing a hole in the road and forcing the road to be closed to traffic.

“After conversations and recommendations from our engineering consultants, a polymer solution will be used to fill the crack in the culvert, which will prevent future leaks,” said Joe Ham, stormwater coordinator, in the release.

This repair is expected to be finished by the end of the week, if not sooner.

Wormholes, rabbit holes, ratholes and now this big-ass Caesar Hole on Spring Street Hill.

Is there money left in the Sinking Fund? (not my joke; thanks to my gag writer)

It's déjà vu all over again. At around 4:00 p.m.on Sunday, at-large councilman Al Knable and family began posting photos on social media.

PLEASE SHARE!

Spring Street Hill, New Albany CLOSED until further notice...

THANKS to Mickey Thompson and NAPD for a quick response on a busy Memorial Day.

Pictures below document what the street looked like around noon today when I called the Street Department. Four hours later we have what you see below.

Initial assessment is likely to take a few days. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime please STAY AWAY as this is still UNSTABLE and should be considered DANGEROUS.

On June 29, 2005 at a special Board of Works session held at night at the Calumet Club (small wonder James Garner got beat), someone in the crowd asked a question and received an answer, paraphrased.

Q. Will the road up Spring Street hill be reopened?
A. Yes, if we can find the money necessary to make repairs the right way.

By 2009, the "right way" had been found, and the usual suspects at Jacobi Toombs and Lanz designed repairs to the tune of $1.3 million.

In April of 2011, Spring Street Hill was closed again after it was revealed that no one involved with the "right" 2009 repairs had considered the possibility it might rain. A year and $660,000 later, Bob Caesar declared a "state of copacetic," which abruptly ended earlier today.

Following (in reverse order) are NAC links to those classic 2012 municipal deliberations. What happens next is anyone's guess, but if you're keeping track: To date, that's $2 million for less than a half-mile of Spring Street Hill, and around $3 million for less than a mile of Main Street beautification.

Somewhere right now, Dan Coffey is salivating, but he (and we) must wait until next Monday.

Hey, kids -- BOOMTOWN!

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June 3, 2012

Nash asks: If those who benefit must pay for it, then why not toll Spring Street hill?

NASH: A little bit of everything, by Matt Nash

... A few weeks ago the New Albany City Council failed to pass a non-binding resolution condemning the use of tolls to fund the Ohio River Bridges project. After being the first municipal government to speak out against tolls a couple of years ago, this time the vote went the other way. A couple of the councilmen spoke out about how much our community needed both of these bridges and the only fair way to pay for it is with tolls.

The resolution was in response to a study that shows the downtown bridge will have a negative impact on the lives of Hoosiers and the people of our state will end up paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of these bridges.

Interestingly the same city council voted to spend $660,000 of taxpayer money to fix the problems with Spring Street Hill. This after spending $1.3 million on the road just a few years ago. The road allows better access to a select few in the neighborhood of Silver Hills. Had the pro-toll councilman used the same logic as the “Bridges Authority” that those who benefit should be the ones who pay for the project, they could have just made Spring Street Hill a toll road too.

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May 23, 2012

Bob Caesar's commute is about to get easier.

... Councilman Bob Caesar, who sponsored the council measure and is a Silver Hills resident, said the reopening of Spring Street Hill road will be a “big deal” for the community.

“We just wanted to make sure this was done once and done right,” he said ...

... City officials firmly stated their intentions to install and enforce vehicle weight limits for Spring Street Hill Road. “I’d even recommend a camera on that hill to keep heavy trucks off of the hill,” Caesar said.

quotes from the paper (Suddeath)

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May 18, 2012 (Gillenwater)

Separate but equal but not really (wink, wink).

The City of New Albany has recently spent an amount on Spring Street Hill Road nearly double the state's total $1.2 million annual TARC outlay to fund transit in the whole of Southern Indiana.

That poorly located, two-fifths mile of engineering accident serving a very limited but very specific population was deemed a high priority necessity for all the goofy reasons Bob "adverse and disproportionate are good, right?" Caesar and a handful of well placed others could muster.

But cut multiple bus routes on which other parts of the city depend for work, groceries, trips to the doctor, etc.? Shucks and shrugs all around. Sorry about your luck.

Given that we're about to spend another million or so on Governor's Balls and the like patting ourselves on the back for 200 years of ongoing something or other, isn't it about time we address the blatant, class-based attitudes that fuel our politics as much now as they did when Washington C. DePauw owned our government?

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March 7, 2012

On engineering and the devaluation of 1,000-year weather events.

At Monday's city council meeting, as the discussion turned to how many dollars per inch it will require to restore Spring Street Hill to viability as Councilman Bob Caesar's fastest route home, engineers became weathermen.

New Albany council wants review of Spring Street Hill work; $540,000 project receives initial approval, but second opinion requested, by Daniel Suddeath (News, Tribune and Pop Up Generator)

The city hoped to receive aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, as Jacobi, Toombs and Lanz President Jorge Lanz said almost 9 inches of rain fell on Silver Hills between April 19 and May 2 of 2011.

But FEMA denied the city’s request earlier this month, though administration officials declared Monday they will appeal the decision within 60 days. Lanz said the “historic” problems associated with the road were part of FEMA’s decision to deny the request, though he said much their reasoning for the ruling was still “cloudy” ...

... Lanz said crews had to dig about 30 feet into the ground before the ravine was discovered, and he added that kind of testing is unusual for such a project.

The drainage installed met city standards, but it’s not feasible to design a system capable of dealing with a 1,000 year storm like April’s rain event was, he continued.

“For this kind of structure, I don’t know what else we could have done,” Lanz said.

If umbrellas were necessary, were they to protect us from rain, or exaggerations? A blog reader delved into the archives:

Indiana Precipitation Records

Driest location ranked by lowest annual average precipitation: English, southern Indiana, 49.72"

Wettest location ranked by highest annual average precipitation: Monroeville, northeast Indiana, 33.74"

Snowiest location ranked by highest annual average snowfall: South Bend, northern Indiana, 76.6"

State precipitation maximum for 24 hours - Princeton, southwest Indiana, 8/6/1905, 10.50"

State precipitation maximum for 1 year - Marengo, southern Indiana, 1890, 97.38"

State snow maximum for 24 hours - Seymour, south-central Indiana, 12/22-23/2004, 29.0"

State snow maximum for 1 season - South Bend, northern Indiana, 1977-1978, 172.0"

It's hard to believe that nine inches of rain falling in a 13 day period qualifies as a "1,000 year storm" - especially when you consider 10.5 inches fell in 24 hours in 1905 in Princeton, Indiana.

Indeed, and another friend asks: "Didn't this much rain fall in two days back in 1997?" In the end, it probably doesn't matter. Caesar wants his handy commute fixed -- and that's not a request.

... Caesar, who is sponsoring the measure, agreed that a second opinion is “imperative” but doesn’t believe it will greatly delay the project to obtain a review.

“I think this could happen in a very short amount of time,” he said.

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March 2, 2012 (Gillenwater)

Head for the hill: Caesar leading another self-serving charge.

Despite Bob Caesar's silly claims to the contrary, Spring Street Hill Road is not a major city artery. It's a low volume, local access road serving a very limited number of residents who have not one but two alternate routes for entering and exiting their relatively isolated neighborhood(s).

The entire path in question is approximately 1,900 feet long. If Caesar's latest proposition receives council approval, the imprudently championed and poorly executed 2/5 of a mile update will have cost citizens $1,000 per foot, assuming the same engineers who didn't sufficiently account for the watershed last time get it right this time.

But Bob lives up there, so nothing's more important.

New Albany’s Spring Street Hill fix to be heard, by Daniel Suddeath

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany City Council will be asked Monday to appropriate $540,000 for Spring Street Hill Road repairs, which if approved, would bring the total amount of money spent on stabilizing the street to nearly $1.9 million.

The road was again closed by the city in May after a section of the street shifted following heavy rains last spring. In 2009, Spring Street Hill was reopened after being shutdown for several years due to erosion problems.

More than $1.3 million in tax-increment financing, or TIF, proceeds were poured into the project three years ago, as engineers and officials believed the road that connects the city’s West End to Silver Hills was finally stable.

“I will always be convinced that I gave the right order.”

Your high school literature teacher tried his best to explain foreshadowing. Consider this obituary from July 1, 2014.

Anatoly Kornukov, Who Led Russian Air Force, Dies at 72, by Margalit Fox (NYT)

Gen. Anatoly Kornukov, a retired commander in chief of the Russian Air Force who in 1983 relayed the order to shoot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 as it strayed into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 aboard, died on Tuesday in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow. He was 72.

As the songwriter observed, we have all been here before ... and that's regrettable.

Coming around again: Matters of principle at LEO.

I think it is highly instructive that LEO's Sarah Kelley has chosen to "take a bullet" rather than acquiesce to a directive she cannot abide. Good for her. I recall a similar story back in 2010.

It had to do with my column for LEO, and Sarah Kelley's protectionist view of Budweiser's place therein,as documented at the time in A Tale of Two Columns, followed shortly thereafter by This round goes to the Liteweights, as Mr. Mug Shot is no more.

Recently I was approached by a pleasant LEO advertising sales person and her boss. They pitched the idea of an ongoing, half-page ad/column to be sponsored by NABC, on the topic of cooking with beer and food-beer pairings.

The rate? Reasonable by the standards of the genre.

I asked who'd be providing the actual content, and clarified that it would be NABC (read: me) and not a LEO staffer. After all, isn't the fact that I once wrote a column for LEO sufficient proof that I'm a writer?

Having established that as a writing ad buyer, I'd have control over the content, I told them the story about my experience as a LEO columnist, the tiff over ever-sensitive megabuck monoliths like AB-InBev not abiding insults, and the fact that I encouraged the door to hit me in the ass while exiting.

So, as advertising purchaser, would I still be censored as to anti-Budweiser polemics in the same way as before?

They said they'd get back to me. It's been a few weeks now, and I've heard nothing.

Now it strikes me as ironic. Sarah Kelley's principled departure from LEO, and the uncertainty surrounding the alt weekly's future, perhaps offer an even better reason to be wary of advertising there ... but it wasn't clear that truth-telling would have been allowed even if I paid to place it.

Matters of principle. Funny damned things, indeed.

WFPL: LEO Editor Sarah Kelley leaves rather than cut staffers, by Staff (Insider Louisville)

In late July we told you SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell was in Louisville to meet with LEO Weekly staffers.

At that time, we asked Ferrell both in phone conversations and in emails about information we had from LEO insiders about pending cuts. He declined to discuss the changes on the record, and, as we say, off the record is off the record.

We also contacted LEO staffers about the cuts, but no one would go on the record.

Today, WFPL’s Gabe Bullard reported LEO Editor Sarah Kelley has chosen to take a bullet rather than to layoff colleagues.

Redistricting plan rejected: "We have all been here before," whispers King Larry via hologram.

Gasoline top-offs come, bicentennials go, and councilman Zurschmiede always comes back to the mic to sing those most immortal of New Albanian legacy mantras: "What's going on under the ground, hmmm?"

Redistricting plan voted down by New Albany council, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Though the measure passed on initial readings, the New Albany City Council voted down a redistricting measure Monday on the final ballot.

The ordinance would have established new district parameters, however it would not have pitted any current council members against each other in the 2015 municipal election.

But those who opposed the plan said the ordinance split too many precincts in an effort to even up the population numbers and could confuse the voters who would be moved to a new district.

The proposal called for five precincts to be split.

"We Back Jack at GoDaddy.com," and other famous campaign slogans.

I get the eerie feeling we've all been here before ...