"Historic preservation, in practice, is not about preserving history. It is about preserving the lifestyle of an affluent urban elite."

I remain broadly in favor of historic preservation, although probably not with the same level of enthusiasm as before. This might have to do with the zealousness of others leading to Reisz-like outcomes for the local ruling elites, although perhaps it's a function of curmudgeonly attainment.

But solar panels? As the story mentions, there was a bit of a rollback after the bad publicity started coming in.

When Historic Preservation Hurts Cities, by Binyamin Appelbaum (New York Times)

The madness of prohibiting solar panels on the rooftops of historic buildings illustrates how preservation culture has run amok.

I live in a historic neighborhood in the heart of Washington, D.C. It’s not historic in the sense that anything especially important happened here — certainly not in the modest rowhouses that make up the bulk of the neighborhood. What “historic” means, here and in cities across the country, is that this is a neighborhood where buildings are not supposed to change.

The law says window frames on Capitol Hill must be wooden, or something that looks very much like wood. If a front door has two parts and opens down the middle, it cannot be replaced by a single door that swings open from the side. If the house was built two stories tall, it must remain two stories tall — unless the addition can’t be seen from the street.

Humans don’t like change, so it’s not surprising that historic preservation laws have become quite popular. There are now more than 2,300 local historic districts across the United States, and I know many people who would like to have their own neighborhood frozen in time.

But historic preservation comes at a cost: It obstructs change for the better. And while that price is generally invisible, it is now on public display because of the city’s efforts to prevent Washington homeowners in historic neighborhoods from installing visible rooftop solar panels ...

House fire in the 3rd district turns the spotlight to the importance of corner buildings, and how few city officials understand it.

It's unlikely the owner will be stepping forward to save the house, given that his serial neglect over a period of years surely contributed to its demise, but maybe miracles still happen.

TIF-buffing, anyone? Duggins' personal "Lots-R-Us" housing authority might be able to take it over for voucher housing.

Meanwhile David Barksdale's right about those idiotically vacant corner lots scattered throughout town where buildings ought to be, with perhaps a dozen in Councilman Phipps' 3rd district alone.

So of course everyone involved happily agreed to build parks at the corner of 11th and Spring, and the corner of Pearl and Spring -- and of course the corner of State and Spring remains a superfluous parking lot, and there's the biggest waste of what should be prime real estate in the entire city where the Farmers Market was built ...

Yep, those corner lots.

True, the city can't control what happens with all of them, but it's too bad we can't get it right for the ones we do.

Fire crews battle blaze at historic New Albany home, by Aprile Rickert (Hanson's Chain Folly)

Building was vacant, chief says

NEW ALBANY — Fire crews continue to attack hot spots after a historic home in downtown New Albany caught fire early Friday morning ...

... The corner-lot house falls within New Albany's historic Mansion Row, adjacent to St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the west and Naville & Seabrook Funeral Home on the north. It was built in 1910 by Edward and Mary Hackett, a family that was in the furniture manufacturing business. Edward died in 1922 and the home was subdivided into apartments in 1926, years before the bulk of larger building were cut into multi-family units during World War I and II.

Mary remained in control of the property until around 1940, when it was purchased by Vincent Knabel.

Floyd County Historian Dave Barksdale said that first and foremost, he's glad no one was seriously injured or killed in the fire. But he's concerned about whether the 109-year-old building will survive the damage.

"Corner buildings are very important to a street and when you lose a corner building, it's a shame because you're losing the anchor of that block," he said. "Depending on what the owner is intending on doing, there could be a good infill project go in there. It would be great if it could be saved, but just from my vantage point, I think it would be awfully hard to save."

Greg Sekula, director of Indiana Landmarks Southern regional office, said he has hope it can be restored.

"It certainly kind of makes your heart sink, particularly when the building is in a historic district and it is a contributing property within the district," Sekula said.

He said the house is a good example of framed colonial style and was one of the more prominent homes on the street when it was built. As an income-producing property, he said there are federal grants available to help with restoration.

"You don't want to see a gaping hole there," Sekula said. "I'm hoping that either the owner or someone else would step forward and try to save the building and rebuild the structure...hopefully the structural integrity is still intact which would make rebuilding feasible."

The Floyd County Assessor's Office confirmed that the property was last sold to Timothy Hollins in 1993. Hollins was unable to be immediately contacted for comment.

Everyday architecture deserves respect, like these modular Yugoslav kiosks.

K57 modular kiosk, from the article.

My attention was grabbed by the article's lead photo (above), which immediately got me thinking about the two days I spent in Slovenia 32 years ago (below).

Looks like the same model to me, grouped at the market square in Ljubljana. There is less similarity with the ones I saw in Skopje, Macedonia, but it's close.

The article is fascinating with numerous links.

Why Everyday Architecture Deserves Respect, by Darran Anderson (CityLab)

The places where we enact our daily lives are not grand design statements, yet they have an underrated charm and even nobility.

Architecture is not simply the stage set in which we live our lives. It is also a reflection of how we live our lives and who we are. An integral aspect to this is the unfolding of time. What happens when our needs, desires, and beliefs change, and the structures we have built no longer facilitate them?

Architectural preservation is often an issue of grandeur, both in a sense of size and richness, and decay. When we think of buildings that already been lost, they are almost always imposing structures—cathedrals, skyscrapers, temples. Yet the places where we enact our daily lives, and which reflect them even more than grand architectural statements, are smaller, more seemingly trivial and thus more vulnerable.

To appreciate the charms of small structures, it is useful to remind ourselves that we primarily interact with architecture from a ground level rather than the god’s-eye view employed in films and renderings. The architecture of day-to-day urban life is driven by utility and merges so integrally into our tasks that we barely notice it as architecture. There have been visionary architects who have recognized and celebrated the underrated nobility of everyday life, and there are some superlative little wonders scattered around our cities.

Specifically ...

Le Corbusier’s seaside Cabanon remained a curious and charming one-off wooden cabin, despite his intention to roll it out as a series of nearby holiday homes. By contrast, there’s the streamlined fiberglass K67 kiosk by Saša J. Mächtig that flourished, for a time, in Slovenia. Being modular, adapting to fit the role and size required, the kiosk allowed “the possibility of growth and change,” in the words of the architect.

Ballparks, too -- or "Preserving the Legacy of Black Baseball in Detroit’s Hamtramck Stadium."

Street view, Google map.

Ever since the old baseball parks began coming down in the 1960s and 1970s, even when I was very young and knew little about the world, I've been wondering why the notion of historic preservation didn't extend to them, too. Shouldn't Wrigley Field and Fenway Park be National Historic Parks? 

Preserving the Legacy of Black Baseball in Detroit’s Hamtramck Stadium, by Anna Clark (CityLab)

An effort to restore one of the last remaining Negro League ballparks uncovers a hidden history of America’s pastime.

Only a few are left.

Negro League ballparks were a vibrant centerpiece of African-American life in the early 20th century, when black people were banished from the major leagues. Their venues read like a map of the Great Migration: at one end, places like Jacksonville, Atlanta, and Hot Springs, Arkansas; at the other, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Cleveland.

It’s taken more than a century, but the historic-preservation movement is finally reaching this neglected part of the cultural landscape. And it’s about time: By one measure, only five still stand.

They include Hamtramck Stadium, where the Detroit Stars played. After sitting as essentially a vacant lot for two decades, it’s gotten a big restoration push recently from local champions of baseball history, family members of a former star player, and also, of all people, Jack White. The rescue campaign interrupts the pattern of preservation tending to favor the structures built by dominant wealthy white people, a pattern that presents a distorted view of the past.

The field and remaining wooden grandstand are in Veterans Memorial Park in Hamtramck, Michigan—a small, dense, and famously diverse community that is bordered on almost all four sides by Detroit. As the home field of the Stars, many of the league’s shining lights played here, including Satchel Page and Josh Gibson. Turkey Stearnes, the Stars’ center fielder and an intimidating left-handed batter, is one of the best to ever play the game. Altogether, 18 people who played at Hamtramck Stadium are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, including Stearnes ...

The good news is that our local contingent of historic preservationists was ahead of the curve as it pertained to saving African-American history; the restored Division Street school is something we all can be proud was restored.

The bad news is that especially since last year's Reisz Mahal shenanigans, these same preservationists have allowed their leadership to over-reach, binding them to the specific political aspirations of a power-hungry dullard of a mayor. It's too bad, but at least we have the chance to fix it -- by firing the mayor.

What are the other "black-history sites" in New Albany?

Some might say the Hartman House on State, currently being remodeled as part of the Reisz Mahal fix; after all, the house was a black-owned funeral parlor for decades until relatively recently. This one is complicated, though, as the original owner Mr. Hartman was a German immigrant, albeit uncharacteristically helpful to the African-American community.

Balance in the cultural landscape? I'm for it.

 ... Brent Leggs is the director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a campaign launched in November 2017 in the wake of violent unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia. The plan: to help preserve 150 black-history sites, and in doing so, to bring balance and depth to how the American story is told in our cultural landscape.

By preserving the tangible evidence of the past, Leggs says, “we allow the public an opportunity to interact and engage with these complex and rich stories in American history.”

Even as the preservation movement in recent years has been working to be more inclusive, he says, traditionally, preservationists have favored the structures associated with wealth and whiteness: the homes of famous industrialists, say, and former presidents. Leggs cites numbers that, in his view, underscore the significant gaps in resources to preserve these places: In the last 15 months, the fund received 1,000-plus proposals from nearly every state, requesting a total of $140 million dollars. “That affirms that African-American historic places are underfunded and undervalued,” he says.

Hamtramck Stadium was built on a former lumberyard ...

Look what the great historic preservation savior Jeff Gahan has done to the Moser Tannery building.

I'm not sure this building can withstand much more "love" from Team Gahan. It's almost as if they were quite content to let it rot, all the better to facilitate demolition.

My oh my, councilman Barksdale. One might say Jeff Gahan's treatment of the historic Moser Tannery building borders on the "inhumane."

Shoe, meet other foot. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

#GahanMustGo
#ShitCanTheDemolitionist
#FireBarksdale2019

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

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

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to show when you are there.”

“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can never come down again.”
“I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the Spider to the Fly.
“There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!”

“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “for I've often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”

“Let’s spend millions to make government more luxurious.”

Said not one taxpayer, in New Albany ... ever.

That’s why the officially sanctioned City Hall plot line for the Reisz Elephant has focused on the prerequisites of historic preservation.

The obvious problem with this approach is that Jeff Gahan’s fervent and impassioned public commitment to historic preservation resembles a tattered Halloween costume, to be pulled from the bag of tricks only once each year when the mayor’s internal campaign finance abacus indicates there may be something in "preservation" for him.

Namely, preserving and expanding his paranoia, and his power.

Haughey’s Place was just as historic as Reisz, and Gahan swept the former tavern away in spite of a solid plan to “save” it. Two new gingerbread houses, holding precisely the same number of occupants as a potentially refurbished Haughey’s, apparently were deemed brighter, shinier objects, at least in the mayor’s inner world of glitz over substance.

So it is that Gahan proposes a $10,000,000 expenditure over 15 years for the renovation of the Reisz Furniture Store into a new luxury location for city hall.

Knowing that plusher government sells about as well as warm Bud Light, Team Gahan’s selling point for the Reisz conversion continues to be those very merits of “historic preservation” he’s ignored so consistently in the past.

Let’s face it. Socially and culturally, Gahan and his sycophants are no better versed than the ordinary Communist Party hacks of old, shipped falling-down shit-faced from Outer Siberia to Moscow to be strapped to the mausoleum siding, lest they fall over it, and to view the May Day parade alongside Comrade Brezhnev.

When they so much as hear the word "art," they reach for their anchors.

However, when it comes to manipulating an intricately designed system of pure political patronage; Gahan is a veritable LeBron James, the reigning master of top-down, down-low, triple-doubled-up lubrication by means of old-school hard cash.

First and foremost, the Reisz Elephant serves a dual purpose for Gahan. It provides an escape route from shared space at the City-County Building, furthering the mayor’s overarching goal of building a wall between city and county government -- and making Mark Seabrook pay for it.

From the moment of Gahan’s accession to itty-bitty-pond power, he has maneuvered to forestall any conceivable manifestation of uni-gov, great or small, because the Democratic Party’s last remaining power base is municipal, and for the political patronage dollars to keep flowing, the fortress must be protected at any cost.

It isn’t exactly a coincidence that Republican at-large councilman David Barksdale feels historic preservation is so important that the Reisz building must be saved … at any cost.

Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, “Dear friend what can I do,
To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;
I'm sure you're very welcome — will you please to take a slice?”

“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “kind Sir, that cannot be,
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”

Faced with the need to procure a fifth council vote for the Reisz extravagance, Gahan knew that Barksdale’s legendary tunnel vision not only facilitates the mayor's anti-county disruption tactics, but adds the indescribably sweet element of an otherwise detested Republican voting against his own party’s interests.

Unfortunately, Barksdale’s propensity for micromanaging tree seedling varieties (shade is secondary to the visibility of buildings from the vantage point of passing cars) and parsing IKEA furniture choices for streetside beautification projects better suited to suburban outlet malls (recently a downtown business owner was overheard to say, “If Barksdale doesn’t leave me alone, I’m going to board up my windows out of spite) suggests that he’s missing a bigger picture.

And the wider aims of historic preservation might well suffer for it.

Last August, it was evident that Gahan had artfully enticed the local historic preservation contingent by dangling the renovation of the former Baity Funeral Home on State Street, with a relatively inexpensive municipal tithe of $50,000 to leverage the fire-damaged building into headquarters for Indiana Landmarks (currently situated in Jeffersonville).

Of course, a finger in Jeffersonville Mike Moore’s eye always is a nice bonus.

With preservationists properly baited, the hook was easily set. There’s nothing controversial about the Baity renovation, while every last detail of the Reisz transaction is a journey into the ethics-free morass of self-interested Gahanism, thus the necessity of snaring Barksdale, presently leading a brigade of well-intentioned historic preservationists into a proxy war to defend Gahan’s political imperatives.

Because: these imperatives are all the Reisz Elephant has. Take away the politics, and Keeneland’s just another race track.

“Sweet creature!” said the Spider, “you're witty and you're wise,
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I've a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,
If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”

“I thank you, gentle sir,” he said, “for what you're pleased to say,
And bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day.”

The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready, to dine upon the Fly.

As an example, there is a potentially strong case for Reisz’s redemption according to historic preservation in a context of economic development. Team Gahan is aware of the subject heading, if not the entire essay, and has espoused it in connection with Reisz.

But the particulars of Gahan’s Reisz methodology largely negate the case for “ripple effect” economic development. The Reisz Elephant itself is a stodgy, embellishment-free warehouse. Passing traffic on the interstate won’t be diverting to view government offices in a warehouse.

And, as a government building, Reisz will be removed from the tax rolls. Precisely the same number of employees will be shifted three blocks, which is a wash economically, although they’ll pick up a few Fitbit steps by walking an extra block back for lunch at the Hitching Post.

In short, Barksdale’s current political coordinates – and by extension, historic preservation’s hard-earned credibility – can be viewed as resting dead center at the bottom of Gahan’s squalid political sewer.

Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
“Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple — there's a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!”

Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings he hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of his brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue —
Thinking only of her crested head — poor foolish thing!
At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held him fast.
He dragged him up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour — but he ne'er came out again!

The Reisz at any cost? Barksdale and his cohorts might first have considered the price of co-option. Our elders were astute when they observed that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

As it stands, the Godfather’s unctuous corporate counsel Shane Gibson has defined the ruling clique’s terms: either Don Gahan’s way or the landfill. It’s a threat aimed squarely at Barksdale and the co-opted historic preservationists, who now must play the roles scripted for them, or else.

Hear me now: This is a bluff, and it’s utter bullshit.

At Wednesday’s public meeting, 6th district independent councilman Scott Blair repeated that it isn’t too late to make sense of the muddle. There are alternatives and options.

In Blair's view, the most rational course forward for the city of New Albany, having already invested in $750,000 to Denton Floyd by handing the real estate company a check contrived by a secret protocol known only to the upper echelons, is to invest in the Reisz building’s stabilization and remarketing.

Then, the city’s “skin in the same” would be an investment of roughly $1,250,000 in a building that most of us would like to save, a level playing field, and subsequently, the platform for truly fair bidding process. After all, lots of contractors would have been "interested" in submitting Reisz proposals had they been offered the sweetheart deal proffered to Denton Floyd.

The pause also gives downtown stakeholders a chance to participate in the conceptualization, rather than restricting it to Gahan and two of his closest cronies. Isn't the "free" market supposed to be about a multiplicity of ideas, not just one preferred option?

As Blair points out, the city already owns property on the southwest corner of Main and Pearl, where a parking garage once stood. A made-to-spec city hall could be built there for far less than the anticipated Reisz payments, and with Reisz renovated by the private sector, it would remain on the tax rolls and actually fulfill the economic development arguments at the heart of judicious historic preservation.

The only reason why Blair’s sensible proposals are being stonewalled is the intransigence of Gahan … and Barksdale.

Their fix is in, their timetables are set, and the tragedy of this whole story is that Barksdale, who means well, doesn’t understand the extent to which he’s being used by an egocentric and inveterate manipulator.

Consequently, historic preservationists might get their chosen building, but by hitching the wagon to Gahan’s unrestrained cult of personality, they risk being cast into the wilderness barring a solitary outcome of next year’s election: namely, the mayor’s re-election.

That’s too bad.

It’s not too late to fix the fix, but first, one of five council members currently dedicated to Dear Leader’s enrichment must put his foot on the brake.

By all rights it should be Barksdale, shouldn’t it?

And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.

---

Mary Howitt wrote the The Spider and the Fly. This search takes you to articles at NA Confidential about the proposed Reisz project. The final vote is Monday. You're advised to contact your councilman (there are no women) and make your viewpoint known.

---

Recent columns:

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

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

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

There was no column on May 31.

2-for-1? Scott Blair describes a better way to save the Reisz building AND get a new city hall.

Previously: 

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

During the course of answering 35 questions at last Thursday's city council meeting, corporate attorney Shane Gibson attempted to navigate contradictions on more than one occasion.

For instance, Gibson argued that a minimum expenditure of $10,000,000 to render the "blighted" (and "neglected," and "dilapidated") Reisz Furniture Warehouse Store into luxurious, expanded work space for Jeff Gahan was the very best solution yet offered to the problem of salvaging the structure, while simultaneously conceding that no other options have been considered.

How can we know it's the best plan when there's nothing to compare it to?

As 6th district councilman Scott Blair (I) illustrates with this Facebook comment, plenty of options exist. It's just that Gahan, Gibson and their ship of fools won't consider them.

I agree that a better use of the Reisz building is mixed retail and residential. The city could offer less than $1,000,000 subsidy to a private developer (purchase the building for around $400,000 and $375,000 and fix infrastructure). The city would recapture the subsidy over time through property taxes. A new city hall could go into an appropriate size building or be a new build. $4,000,000 seems to be a good estimate for new construction. A site could be the parking structure next to Big Four Burgers on Main St. Advantages are lower overall cost, bringing more people into downtown, and infill of a blighted lot.

In short, two buildings -- one rehabbed, the other new -- for half the proposed expenditure. And yet an idea like Blair's HAS NOT EVEN BEEN CONSIDERED.

Redevelopment's request for proposal (RFP) period?

A whole ten days. How could this be sufficient time for other interested parties to participate -- assuming they weren't scared away by previous public statements strongly implying the single plan was a done deal. 

When it came to the two-way street grid changes, at least three traffic studies were conducted over a period of years before these statistics were handed to HWC Engineering to be ignored. Most of the final expense was borne by the federal government, and the campaign kickback gravy was especially succulent.

But $10,000,000 for the Reisz Elephant isn't being offset by a gift from afar, and Team Gahan has conducted no studies, and considered no other alternatives. It's Gahan's way, or down comes the building.

Blair's idea has one major flaw, because the work required to save Reisz and build city hall probably would not be finished before next year's elections, and completed bright shiny objects are essential to Gahan's flashcard campaign strategy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To conclude, our elders were astute.

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

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Latest Reisz City Hall cost estimate reaches $9,250,000 -- and the tote board keeps spinning.

Previously the Green Mouse suggested that at least $390,000 had passed from Redevelopment to Denton Floyd to defray the purchase price of the former Reisz Furniture building.

ON THE AVENUES: Histrionic preservation? $8.5 9.25 million to gift Jeff Gahan with a new city hall "want" is inexcusable and simply obscene in a time of societal need.

The Mouse has since been persuaded that $750,000 is closer to the mark, as it pertains to accounting for the money already spent by City Hall to facilitate a new city hall -- whether it's reflected by Redevelopment accounting or not.

With there being no dispute that annual rent-to-own payments of $570,000 will total $8.5 million over the 15-year life of the agreement, the Mouse proposes that $9.25 million be used as the latest, best cost estimate -- and this is before moving expenses, interior decor, computers, tables, chairs and other top o' the line equipment is purchased.

The final city council vote will come at the Monday, July 2 meeting.

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

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

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm making up for the vacation day two weeks ago. For this afternoon's follow-up post, go here.

Back in 2014, Mayor Jeff Gahan had a prime opportunity to advance historic preservation.

A noted local contractor was willing to renovate the 150-year-old tavern building at 922 Culbertson Avenue, once doing business as Haughey’s Place, and known to a later generation as Al-Mel's. According to an oral understanding between the contractor and City Hall, Haughey’s was to be rehabilitated into the sort of street corner fixture our neighborhoods so desperately need.

Alas, poor Haughey's.

Unknown to most, a top-secret, in-house plan already was gestating to subsidize New Directions to build four houses in long-vacant lots across the street from Haughey's, and after a brief lull for campaign finance ciphering, our distinguished C-minus student/mayor abruptly reneged on saving the tavern, instead ordering the demolition of this longtime community gathering place.

ON THE AVENUES: A year later, the backroom politics of pure spite at Haughey’s Tavern still reek. (2015)

ON THE AVENUES: Now on tap at the ghost of Haughey's Place: The politics of pure spite. (2014)

Two more houses were added to the New Directions mandate, to be built atop the tavern’s vanquished, naked footprint. In 2015, to the surprise of absolutely no one, flash cards of these six finished houses (weirdly dubbed "painted ladies" by prudes unaware of prostitution's age-old vernacular) became one of Gahan’s prime re-election platform planks. Obviously, vacuous propaganda of this ilk was the primary reason for the tavern’s demolition in the first place.

Do you remember what our Genius of the Flood Plain said about the death sentence he handed to Haughey’s?

“After the construction of these homes are completed, no one will miss the dilapidated structure that was at 922 Culbertson Avenue.”

Sensitive self-monetizer, isn't he?

Four years later, these six pleasant, ordinary houses haven't made so much as a dent in terms of the city’s affordable housing crisis, and Gahan's brief, tepid interest in the topic had evaporated even before he began giggling with a poo-bah's childlike delight at his brilliant stratagem of targeting vulnerable populations at the New Albany Housing Authority for eviction and dispersal. The mayor's signature public housing putsch was greeted with fawning, slobbering approval by the Democratic Party's semi-literate bookless bootlickers.

It's June, 2018, and peak Gahanism has arrived. The Leaden Anchor-Laden Emperor has decreed that housing conditions for his staff outweigh the needs of the many, and so it seems inevitable that the “dilapidated” and “neglected” Reisz Furniture building on Main Street not only will escape the tavern’s dismal fate, but is singularly worthy of conversion into a brilliant new showpiece City Hall, one destined to gather many gushing state and national preservation awards, and some sweet day, bear the mayor’s name in awestruck tribute.

The backroom deals seemingly have been cut, the dupes corralled, and the necessary votes secured. Beaks are achieving optimal wetness. Of course, had Gahan concluded the opposite -- that a new parking garage, concert promotion bureau or gaping hole in the ground would be better to keep his gang of influence-peddlers in power -- then Reisz would have long since been reduced to rubble.

Histrionic preservationists should take pause, because it would be a mistake to rule out this purely conceivable outcome.

Other folks count sheep, Gahan enumerates wrecking balls -- and tree stumps, full-page magazine ads and anchor tattoos -- and Reisz might yet tumble earthward if the mayor doesn’t get his way.

Surely the snarling pre-emptive threats already have been transmitted via a brace of 2:00 a.m. phone calls to the minions, who silently curse the inconvenience as they bill to the mayor's dulcet coo. The envelopes are stuffed, and the globe keeps spinning.

---

Whenever Gahan, a presumed Democrat, pontificates about the Reisz project being “a move to protect our history," I sadly recall the fate of Haughey’s and so many other remnants of the city’s past, buildings that might have been adaptively re-used, but didn’t meet the threshold of narcissistic grandiloquence demanded by the mayor’s ethics-free selective reasoning and laughably elevated self-image.

In a city more allergic to irony than pollen or ragweed, Gahan’s newfound tender concern for the historical imperatives of the Reisz building is profoundly ironic, too. Do you recall those two words, “dilapidated” and “neglect”?

They’re not mine.

Rather, they come straight from Dear Leader’s mouth, via the medium of Mike Hall, the Shadow Mayor & Big Word Interpreter & Imperial Court Food Taster, and they serve as the convenient excuse for Gahan to don his Halloween leftover Superman outfit and rescue this pathetically abused historic building from the scandalous clutches of its shirker owner, who after all, has allowed it to deteriorate to the current juncture of high urgency.

Except the neglectful "villain" in this instance has been remunerated far above market value for his stubbornness. The redevelopment commission surreptitiously gifted the Reisz’s purchase price of $390,000 to the city’s preferred contractor Denton Floyd -- by sheer coincidence, a firm frequently contributing to Gahan’s campaign war chest -- which duly passed the money to the Reisz building’s owner, who as Gahan himself concedes, rendered it dilapidated in the first place.

In consequence-free Nawbany, the words “miraculous government-enabled windfall bailout” spring immediately to mind.

Eagerly abetting Gahan’s desire to erect a lasting memorial to his shimmering and saintly benevolence is councilman David “Tunnel Vision” Barksdale, a thoroughly camouflaged Republican and prominent historic preservationist, who has let it be known that the Reisz building is so very important to the city that no cost is too great to “save” it.

To summarize, for at least thirty years the structure has rotted, but only now, with a crucial municipal election coming in 2019, does time suddenly become of the essence. The decision about Reisz must be made right away, with as little transparent public debate as possible, or else the city’s forward progress will be halted dead in its tracks.

And people still wonder why I’m cynical. 

---

So it is that even by the perennially underachieving standards of New Albany political decision-making, proponents of the Reisz renovation have mustered weak, wearying and dubious arguments in support of this project.

For example, there’s the "wave the bloody shirt of macho civic pride" argument. Gahan asks how we can countenance our neglected and dilapidated (my words, not his) city department sycophants laboring in an outdated and cramped shambles of a shared city-county building owned by our mortal enemies in Floyd County government, who long ago supplanted heinous Jeffersonville as the proper object of patriotic New Albanian scorn.

In short: If the city doesn’t immediately get its own pad, that dastardly Mark Seabrook wins!

As such, Gahan proposes to improve and enlarge the work space in a future Reisz City Hall, but seriously, do a couple dozen city employees really need four times more office space in this age of the microchip, when administrative needs are ever more reduced and compacted?

Besides, no other City Hall rehousing options have been explored. None of the many other historic buildings in need of refurbishment have been considered, and new construction evidently is off the table. Not once has it been explained why the cavernous Reisz building is the only possible solution to an insignificant problem -- apart from “Big Daddy G says so.”

However, there are at least 8,500,000 solid reasons to be wary, because since the Reisz dream was announced less than a year ago, the annual cost to the city for these new digs already has more than doubled, to $570,000 per year on a handy 15-year, rent-to-own payment plan, with the necessity of TIF pledges as collateral.

Imagine how $570,000 each year might address the genuine needs of city residents, like decent housing, workforce training, transit choices or remedying our shrinking urban tree canopy. It might even finance the long overdue fulfillment of Gahan's pledge to institute rental property inspections, which he's hoping we've forgotten. We haven't. 

The most unconvincing argument of all comes from Barksdale, who claims this total investment of at least $8.5 million to provide enhanced luxury government space is fully justified because it will definitively prove at long last to skeptical townspeople that City Hall is willing to put “skin in the game.”

To support this breathtaking instance of middle school adolescent playground logic, Barksdale asserts that during the past decade, entrepreneurs and private investors have poured somewhere around $60 million into downtown.

Stopped analog clocks can be trusted twice a day, and Barksdale is correct; he may be lowballing the amount, but he's drawing a mistaken conclusion.

To understand why, consider that few, if any, of the incentives, abatements and giveaways routinely awarded by the city to corporate entities like Sazerac have yet to land in the deserving laps of these independent business operators.

They’ve gone it almost entirely alone, and an uncommon number have succeeded, and yet somehow from this reality Barksdale conjures an indie business community desperately begging the city to display insane fiscal profligacy by pumping $8.5 million into a single downtown building rather than into downtown as a whole.

It's an "all eggs into one basket" proposition, moving a small number of government employees already adequately housed a mere stone's throw away, while at the same time taking the Reisz building permanently off the tax rolls, and worse, foolishly depleting economic development resources to facilitate the wants of four-times-bigger government, as opposed to the needs of private sector employers, or more importantly, of ordinary citizens all over town who are struggling to make ends meet.

Barksdale’s elitist view of what constitutes "skin in the game" doesn't make sense. It's our "skin" as citizens, not his (or Gahan's). Simply stated, this is sheer, contrived, oblivious and unadulterated hokum.

---

Councilman Scott Blair, an independent, sensibly suggests (to Deaf ears) that "putting skin in the game" might be more effective, and more prudent financially, if mayor and council worked together to prioritize the Reisz building's redemption via the private sector, with the city devoting reasonably-scaled dollops of economic development funds and subsidies to help someone else save the building and keep it taxable.

Blair understands that what downtown stakeholders don’t really need is $8.5 million devoted to the enhancement of mayoral megalomania, while masquerading as historic preservation fetishism. However, downtown stakeholders actually do need some skin, just not in the form of a government-only housing upgrade.

They need infrastructure improvements aimed at greater walkability, bikeability and access for the disabled.

They -- we -- need more residents living downtown ... fast and modern internet access ... grassroots programs for small business ... capable workers ... a structured plan for branding and marketing ... and two-way streets -- not like Gahan’s half-assed pavement enhancement expenditure last year, but in the form of reliable transparency and regular communication from, and with, City Hall itself.

Grassroots support, not trickle down; and moreover, stakeholders in the remainder of the city need these investments and innovations, as well.

Mark these words: Gahan's chronic neglect of the periphery, and his occasional colonial abuses of outlying neighborhoods (ask Mt. Tabor Road residents "why he's here") are about to become an important campaign issue for 2019.

If it’s true that a government building stuffed with government workers can be a viable tool for revitalization -- and this notion is highly debatable -- wouldn’t it be a better idea to move City Hall to the moribund Colonial Manor shopping center on Charlestown Road, thereby helping to revitalize a “neglected” corridor that really needs it?*

Overall, considering the many issues we face citywide, ask yourself truthfully: can $8.5 million to overhaul the Reisz building for government use, and government use alone, genuinely help resolve a single one of them?

No, and anyone who thinks ordinary New Albanians-on-the-street are clamoring for this potted project has descended into self-delusion. If put to a referendum, a new or remodeled City Hall would lose at least 70% - 30%. and every ranking political suit in town knows it, hence the cloak and dagger back alley pursuit of Gahan’s and Barksdale’s narrow and expensive goal.

I generally favor historic preservation, and it was a punch to the gut to watch the wrecking ball fell Haughey’s Tavern, but it's past the time for us to recognize that preservationists are not immune to jumping the shark.

Remember when the "cost be damned" necessity of the moment was a heroic crusade to save the tiny Emery's Ice Cream building?

I, too, advocate the rehabilitation of the Reisz, but in the rational and integrated fashion suggested by Scott Blair. A final council vote remains, and it’s still possible for reason to prevail if one of four councilmen, all Democrats, come back to earth: Nash, Phipps, Caesar or McLaughlin. Courage, anyone?

The lessons of the past also mustn’t be forgotten. Gahan’s rapacious, self-serving and politically motivated calculations have brought us to this absurd juncture.

In effect, the mayor is endorsing an equation whereby Barksdale and the historic preservationist contingent assert that the Reisz building must be saved at any cost, and by extension, only government can shoulder the burden of unlimited costs since limitless money is what government is here to provide for ideas precisely like this.

Boundless money ... and for what?

A building, not people.

This is the final, infuriating insult, and it is inexplicable to me that Barksdale and the lock-step community pillars being pushed to the lectern in support of this extravagance (although not Gahan himself, who as usual, hasn't bothered to appear publicly at all) blithely favor bilking taxpayers to the tune of $8.5 million to save this single building, but when they're asked about Gahan’s eagerness to demolish public housing units without a coherent plan to rehouse the flesh-and-blood humans who’ll be displaced, they no longer have anything to say, and head straight for the exits.

Eyes turn to the ceiling, crickets chirp and pins drop. Somewhere, a dog balefully yowls.

It's the silence of the shams.

They adore bright shiny objects, not so much the vulnerable. Glorious government buildings, not persons in need. Plaques for the self-anointed pillars, not assistance for the oppressed. Disney-fried grandiosity in bricks and mortar … not human beings.

Hypocrisy on this colossal scale unfortunately isn't novel in New Albany, though it's no less sickening when it flares.

However, we can rejoice, because in less than a year, there’ll be the opportunity to rectify the robotic empathy imbalance by way of the ballot's historically restorative power.

Until then, please call your councilman and ask him (they’re all men, you know, each and every one of them) to explain how an $8.5 million City Hall helps resolve anything at all -- and if they don't hang up on you, send their answers to NA Confidential.

---

* with a nod to the Bookseller.

---

Recent columns:

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

There was no column on May 31.

May 24: ON THE AVENUES: Long live Keg Liquors Fest of Ale, an indisputable annual beer institution.

May 17: ON THE AVENUES: Ghosts within these stones, defiance in these bones.

Reisz, City Hall, and the only truthful argument: As historic preservationists, we must save this building at any cost, and limitless costs are what government is all about -- so we must act now.

The conversion of the (a) dilapidated, (b) neglected, and (c) poorly maintained Reisz Furniture Building into a new City Hall seems to be inevitable. The deals have been cut, and the votes secured.

This "move to protect our history" will come to fruition at a total cost of at least $8.5 million to the city, and it's also highly likely that during one of many backroom deals leading to this juncture, $390,000 was passed by the city to Denton Floyd to buy the structure from Schmitt Furniture -- which City Hall itself admits is responsible for the dilapidation, neglect and poor maintenance.

The city's propagandists used those words, not me.

David Barksdale, a Republican, has carried the ball for this idea, as joined by numerous other pillars of the community, most of whom are Democrats. Because proponents sense that historic preservation alone won't play to the 25% of eligible voters who'll bother turning out in 2019, they've buttressed their case with other arguments.

The argument from civic patriotism

If we're to believe Mayor Jeff Gahan, the city of New Albany (read: the Democratic Party) is engaged in a Great Civil War with Floyd County government (or,the GOP), making it imperative for the municipality to one-up future mayoral opponent Mark Seabrook's team at every opportunity. As such, how can we allow city officials to labor in a veritable shambles on the third floor of a county-owned building?

It's worse than the Bulldogs being beaten by Floyd Central, and it has to stop.

Rebuttal: Seriously? Are we still in high school?

The argument from efficiency

Last year, when a project designed non-transparently and completely out of public view was announced, we were told the savings would be tremendous; instead of a quarter-million annually to occupy the City-County Building, we'd pay just a bit over $300,000 per year to occupy the Reisz on a rent-to-own basis.

This estimate has risen steadily to $570,000 per year; we're pledging TIF bonds and engaging in even more backroom chicanery to make even these inflated numbers work.

Meanwhile, no other options have been explored, no other buildings considered, and as yet, it has not been explained exactly why local government must quadruple its work space in the age of the microchip.

As rebuttal, it cannot be efficient to consider only one choice, then bend reality to suit this single outcome -- and just imagine how $570,000 each year might address a genuine need, like affordable housing for people, as opposed to luxury work spaces for government.

The argument for "putting skin in the game"

According to Barksdale, entrepreneurs and private investors have poured somewhere around $60 million into downtown during the past decade, an estimate he views as low, probably rightly.

Barksdale uses this number as the basis for his contention that by investing $8.5 million over 15 years into the rehabilitation of a single downtown building in need, so as to relocate an existing entity a full four blocks from one site to another, while at the same time taking the Reisz building off the tax rolls and deploying economic development resources to facilitate the needs of government, all of it taken together proves conclusively that City Hall is putting "skin in the game" (his quote).

Simply stated, this is sheer hokum.

To repeat, no other options have been considered. Councilman Scott Blair has sensibly suggested that "putting skin in the game" would be more sensible and effective if considered differently: working together, mayor and council might prioritize the Reisz building's rehabilitation, devote economic development funds and subsidies to enticing the private sector, keep the building on tax rolls and do, in effect, what already was done to incentivize the Breakwater, among others.

Yes, we've debated the efficacy of subsidies in the past, but clearly Blair is correct. A few hundred thousand to leverage the Reisz's salvation is far less than $8.5 million, freeing funding to be used for numerous other projects, not just one, or establishing grassroots programs for small business.

AND THIS IS THE POINT, FOLKS.

The Reisz City Hall project is based on a demonstrably false overall plea, this being an argument from the urgency of a single possibility -- a want rather than a need:

The only way municipal government can "help" downtown is by means of this single historic preservation project -- and time is running out, so if we don't agree immediately, there'll be no other chance, ever again.

This is bullshit, plain and simple, as demonstrated here today.

Unfortunately, one after the other, downtown stakeholders have marched to the lectern to repeat the falsehood.

(Note that there has been no wave of advocacy whatever from the city's neighborhoods and business districts outside the center; perhaps the single best alternative voiced thus far is the Bookseller's idea to move City Hall to the moribund Colonial Manor shopping center on Charlestown Road.) 

Even worse, many of those in alignment with Barksdale and Gahan have been independent business operators, and to them I say:

Small biz peeps, I've experienced the pain, and I know exactly how you feel, but you need to look more closely.

If local government can help at all, it cannot help by devoting money with a myriad of potential uses to a single expensive initiative that primarily benefits local government itself.

If the Reisz building disappeared tomorrow (as I'm sure Gahan has threatened to facilitate if he doesn't get his way), then your daily issues would remain, as they were, unchanged -- and this also will be the outcome if the City Hall move actually occurs. It's never this one big thing; it's many smaller things.

The fact that community pillars aren't speaking of other options is a cynical and unforgivable diversion. There are many, except the fix is in -- and this fix has NOTHING to do with your betterment.

However, there is one solitary non-contradictory truthful argument in favor of spending $8.5 million to restore the Reisz building and move City Hall to it.

As historic preservationists, we must save this building at any cost, and limitless costs are what government is all about -- so we must act now.

In the end, this is all they have.

I don't know about you, but it's not enough for me.

Panel of polemicists proposes an exciting non-Reisz city hall relocation idea.

These adaptive reuse pieces took a while to come together, but now it's my pleasure to offer an viable alternative to David Barksdale's City Hall's plan (or is it David Barksdale's City Hall's plan -- so very confused) to deploy millions of back-scratching dominoes (and dollars) so that the neglected/dilapidated Reisz furniture building might be used for city offices.

It works like this: first, Culbertson gets a new name.

Unoccupied since 2011 in spite of constant assurances, the historic structure at the corner of 8th and Champs-Ely-GAHAN becomes the mayor's new office.

There's enough square feet for an official state guest room with plenty of faucets for visiting campaign donors to wet their beaks.

There's ample space in the old Emery's Ice Cream Building for remaining municipal offices and city council chambers.

As Dear Leader often says, "if you're not out panhandling for papa, you might as well be residing in a closet."

Best of all, just a few hundred feet down the Champs-Ely-GAHAN is the acreage inhabited by the Democratic Party's most loyal voters.

This plan is a slam dunk, a home run and a bottomless pint glass, all in one. In fact, it makes so much sense that satire is rendered helpless. Say what you will, but this makeover is destined for a Mayor Jeff M. Gahan Lifetime Empillarment Award.

Yes, and by the way, Greg Sekula got some good ink from Dale Moss last week.

MOSSWORDS: Answering the call to preserve in Southern Indiana, by Dale Moss (Inexplicably Tom May-less)

JEFFERSONVILLE — If not in Birdseye, where a former commercial building burned, Greg Sekula may find himself again in Medora, home to an abandoned brick factory.

Or Sekula could be in Charlestown, weighing in further on in the bitterly-debated future for Pleasant Ridge.

Sekula directs our region’s office of Indiana Landmarks. In other words, he asks pointed questions, poses daunting challenges and, all in all, pokes his nose routinely in business you or someone might suggest is not his.

Out with the old, in with the new? Not so fast, Sekula urges ...

Throwing Reisz: The Jeff M. Gahan Luxury Government Center keeps the emphasis on buildings, as opposed to people.

Previously:

Council Monday: If we're spending $$$ "saving the neglected Reisz Furniture Building to use as a new city hall," then can we be clear as to how it became "neglected" in the first place?

Chris Morris of the Tom May Picayune has by-the-numbers coverage of last evening's council soiree, at which our new anchor-certified city hall took its first inevitable steps toward completion.

Pay close attention to Scott Blair's and Dan Coffey's comments. The council's two independent members distinguished themselves with pointed questions. They followed the money, and should be thanked for doing so.

Council Democrats? They couldn't be bothered.

The usual community pillars want a luxury city hall, and they want it badly, but the curious truth is that the razor-thin 5-4 vote carried only because yet again, quasi-Republican David Barksdale carried Mayor Jeff Gahan's damask jockstrap safely across the finish line.

Next meeting's third reading is a foregone conclusion unless Barksdale is kidnapped and spirited away to Bolivia in the interim.

Yesterday, the Green Mouse was told that during an earlier conversation about the Reisz conversion, Barksdale was asked if there was a point beyond which saving the building would no longer be financially feasible.

How much is too much?

"Whatever it takes," was Barksdale's reply.

For a building. Not human beings and their needs ... but a government building. This no longer qualifies as historic preservation. 

It's a fetish, plain and simple.

There's a famous old gag by Jack Benny, whose comic persona was that of miserly skinflint. An armed robber approaches Benny: "Your money or your life."

Stone-faced, Benny turns slowly away from the increasingly impatient robber to look at the audience.

"I'm thinking it over!"

CM Barksdale, here's $570,000 for 15 years. Shall we spend it on people or historic preservation?

He wouldn't have to think it over. 

Not at all.

When the vote was concluded, the room abruptly emptied. Seems that community pillars can follow only one topic at a time; let's hope none of them are complaining about potholes, given that paving was the subject of a lengthy discussion after their hurried departure.

In the momentary scrum, Dan Coffey looked at me and said (paraphrased): This is the mayor's project, and he should be here to advocate it. Put that on your web page.

Preaching to the choir, sir, and I already have, but let's repeat it.

Mark my words: In 16 years, or whenever the city is finished renting-to-own the Reisz building -- and assuming the Democratic Party still exists, and is in control -- there'll be a pillar-impelled movement to name it the Jeff Gahan Government Center.

Gahan, a DemoDisneyDixiecrat, who'll campaign against Republican Mark Seabrook in next year's mayoral election, will point early and often to this Reisz rehab historic preservation luxury governance project as a signature achievement of his glorious reign.

AND GAHAN COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO ATTEND THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 7, 2018. 

HE SENT MIKE HALL INSTEAD. 

Barksdale did the rest. A couple months back, when asked about his view on the mayor's hostile takeover of public housing, Barksdale -- an at-large council member representing all the city's citizens -- waved away the question.

Affordable housing?

It's not his area, and there's nothing he can do. He didn't even have to think about it.

Sickening, isn't it?

Reisz Building plan moves forward after New Albany City Council vote

NEW ALBANY — The dilapidated Reisz Building, at 148 E. Main St., moved one step closer to having a tenant Monday night after the New Albany City Council approved the first two readings of an ordinance that will turn the structure into a new city hall.

The ordinance calls for the city to enter into a lease agreement with Denton Floyd Real Estate Group. Under the agreement, the city will pay $570,000 a year rent to Denton Floyd for 15 years. In year 16, the city will outright own the building.

Denton Floyd's proposal would include $5.6 million to renovate the 23,000 square-foot building with construction beginning in July. The plan is to turn the building over to the city in July 2019 ...

 ... The city currently pays the Building Authority around $200,000 a year for rent of the City-County Building. So the deal will cost the city an additional $375,000 a year for 15 years, something that did not go unnoticed by some council members ...

Council Monday: If we're spending $$$ "saving the neglected Reisz Furniture Building to use as a new city hall," then can we be clear as to how it became "neglected" in the first place?

Actually, we already know the whys and wherefores about the neglect. We'd prefer Jeff Gahan or David Barksdale to concede them aloud, but we'll probably have to settle for Mike Hall saying nothing at all -- 'cuz that's the way Dear Leader rolls.

Private sector, here we come.

Can't we have a factually accurate discussion about municipal history, just this once?

ON THE AVENUES: Super Tuesday shrapnel – or, tiptoeing through the tulips with Dan Coffey, now THE face of historic preservation in New Albany.

But there's good news: Coffey's now a skeptic, and he is vigorously advocating a Reisz-xit.

10 short months ago.

Not to be a pest, but we're wondering about the rumored cost overruns. When not chortling over Duggins/Keeneland junkets with women, booze and Duggins, as staged by the preferred contractor's top brass, Denton Floyd's workers have been gossiping freely about the unexpected expenses to stabilize the building.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Is the price tag escalating for our luxury City Hall at the Reisz Furniture building?

That's because the building's been sitting there barely tended for decades -- in the city's own words (not ours), "neglected."

To neglect something is to not take good care of it, like neglecting your pet salamander by not cleaning its cage, or fail to show your usual affection — neglecting your old friends when you make new ones. The person or thing that endures such shabby treatment is neglected — feeling unloved, ignored, and in need. Another meaning of neglected is "overlooked," like when you neglected to bring your umbrella and got soaked.

In fairness, there'll be a gleaming, windowed Schmitt Furniture rehab when all is said and done; Denton Floyd paid Schmitt Inc. $390,000 for the Reisz building, and now Schmitt Inc. pulls 25% of the cost of facade improvements at the Furniture Corner, with Horseshoe Grants accounting for the 75% match.

That's good leveraging for a "neglected" building -- city's words, not ours.

The Green Mouse also has been hearing rumors about City Hall informing the Harvest Homecoming governing committee that 2018 will be the last year for Fiesta Rides in the parking lot behind the projected City Hall (by the levee). Sidestepping the many ongoing (and in some instances, unresolved) issues pertaining to Harvest Homecoming and the independent business community downtown, it remains that Fiesta Rides generates lots of cash for the festival.

The Mouse thinks that threatening to evict Fiesta Rides is Jeff Gahan's way of staking a claim to a negotiating stance v.v. co-billing for Anchor City and Harvest Homecoming. In other words, the city would offer the festival a subsidy for lost revenue, or a credit for other expenses, in return for branding rights: Hon. Jeff Gahan Presents Harvest Homecoming, or some such.

There are many moving parts in this Reisz story, but unless someone like Coffey decides to ask some hard questions on Monday night, I'm guessing we'll hear only one side of it.

Here's the agenda. The Green Mouse and I will begin drinking shortly after lunch -- and by the way, if you're read this far, it is my intent to use non-agenda public speaking time Monday evening to address the forthcoming Taco Walk: cultural appropriation last year, theft of the founder's intellectual property rights, and the need for city government to monitor Develop New Albany's cliquish tendencies.

One clique overseeing another? This isn't Scandinavia, you know.