Here's a breathtakingly novel thought: "We wear (a mask) for you, please wear one for us."

And this.

And this.

Three different craft brewing entities, but a central point: mask up and make it easier for them to stay in business.

Or, easier for us, right here in New Albany.

But do local operators in New Albany share a universal view of science? My guess, and it's just that -- a guess -- is the answer might surprise you.

In other news ...

Typically toothless city council mask resolution proves that even a pandemic can't compel New Albany’s Democrats to actually GOVERN.

New Albanian Brewing Company looks to reopen on or around the 1st of August.

The post below drew almost 500 likes on Facebook and generated 80-odd comments, almost all of them positive. When you've been around 33 years, making NABC among the oldest continually operating pub businesses in town, that's the way it works.

While I'm no longer a part of NABC, make no mistake: I want them to succeed, and I'm confident they will. After all, 25 of those years included me, and I'm quite proud of what we accomplished in making New Albany a better place.

---

June 30, 2020

The New Albanian Brewing Co. Pizzeria & Pub (aka Sportstime Pizza) was TEMPORARILY closed in late March due to the Covid-19 virus pandemic. We had hoped for better news by now regarding the spread, testing, or vaccinations of this virus but this does not seem to be the case. We are still not satisfied that opening our doors would be in the best interest of our employees or the public. We are all facing unprecedented circumstances and this has not been easy to make business decisions but we are doing our best.

As such, we are announcing that NABC will remain closed for the month of July. Our plan, as of today, is to REOPEN on or around the first of AUGUST.

As you may be aware, we have been working on repairs and maintenance, cleaning, reorganizing and more cleaning since our shut down. Two of the bigger projects have already been completed during this time...a much-needed new roof for the entire complex as well as a new exhaust hood for our pizza oven! There has been some painting in both dining rooms and we have more projects planned during July such as adding a hand washing station in the Arcade, updating sanitation safety measures, updates to our employee handbook, printing new menus that will be easily wipeable, relocating the Gifts Store, installing new thermostats, installing two additional point-of-sale systems to provide less overlap of screen touching by front of house staff, and plans on how to layout the dining areas to provide distance and/or barriers of some sort between diners.

Opening will begin slowly for us not only to control the flow of customer traffic intelligently, safely and realistically, but because it will require quite a bit of time for us to ramp back up to full production of both food and beer. The brewery will take months to get back on track from ingredients ordered to brewing to tank time to tapping. Getting to our normal operational hours will take more time than anyone desires, but we feel it is the best course of action.

We are incredibly grateful for everyone's support, patience and understanding during these times. Please check our Facebook page for any new or updated information near the end of July.

Be safe. Wear a mask if you can. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. Stay physically distant, not socially distant. Hope to see you all soon!

Much Love,
The New Albanian Sisters
AMY&Kate

The Calumet Club celebrates a century, so hats off to the Bliss family for their stewardship of an institution.

Under renovation, 2006.

We begin with the newspaper's account on Friday (June 12), then turn to our legal bagel Shane for a new/old word, before concluding with three vital links.

Calumet Club celebrates 100th anniversary as family continues legacy, by Daniel Suddeath (Hanson's Dotty Folly)

NEW ALBANY — It helped launch the career of a Major League Baseball Hall of Fame player, provided a gymnasium for local basketball teams at a time when such space was scarce, and served as the base for a group of men who valued community spirit.

A century ago today, the Calumet Club moved into its new headquarters at 1614 E. Spring St. Considered a prestigious organization that reached a membership of about 800 at its peak, men paid about $1.50 a month to be part of the social and athletic club.

The continued use of the building and the living history behind its century of existence are testaments to a family's vision.

Richard Bliss died in 2012, but he got to fulfill his dream of owning the Calumet Club and restoring it into a charming centerpiece of the East Spring Street and Vincennes Street corridor.

“The main reason was to save a beautiful building because of its history and to give back to the community,” Mark Bliss said of his parents’ intentions for buying and restoring the Calumet Club.

---

Back in 2016, the Calumet Club prompted a question of our resident municipal bond fetishist wordsmith.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

 ... Many readers already know about the Calumet Club in New Albany. There are also Calumet rivers, regions and towns. But what is a calumet when used as a noun?

It's a Native American pipe.

Tobacco, indigenous to North America, followed Indian trade routes throughout the continent long before Columbus arrived, and pipe smoking took on a ritual and religious importance in many tribes. Naturally, the crafting of pipes became equally important.

The most famous Native American pipes are the long calumets or "peace pipes" of the Sioux and other Plains Indian tribes, which were made by attaching a wooden stem to a bowl carved from catlinite or "pipestone." (Pipestone is native to Minnesota, but due to intertribal trade was available throughout Native North America.) Other native pipe-making traditions included the smaller one-piece stone and ceramic pipes of the Iroquois and Cherokee tribes, wood and antler pipes of the Southwest Indians, and the post-Columbian tomahawk pipes with a metal pipe bowl and hatchet on opposite ends of the stem.

Calumet Club Dates in History, courtesy of the Calumet Club, illustrate that it was a thriving social institution on post-WWI New Albany. Finally, from the library's Stuart Barth Wrege Indiana History Room comes this memento of times long gone.

As the singer pithily observed, we have all been here before.

November 25, 2004:

NA Confidential goes troubleshooting, enjoys dessert, and visits the Calumet Club

December 16, 2006:

A peek inside the Calumet Club's third-floor future ballroom.

November 24, 2009

The Calumet Club adds an elevator ... so when's the beer festival upstairs?

With independent small businesses at risk, no use looking to a panic-stricken City Hall for help.

Always remember -- and never forget -- that in the case of New Albany, even if we're able to struggle back to our feet at any point this year, INDOT is waiting to cave our skulls in a second time with years upon years of Sherman Minton Bridge traffic dislocation.

As the mayor's captive council lackeys only now begin to fathom that they'll be the ones to take the fall for budget catastrophes in the wake of COVID, freeing Jeff Gahan to continue his own hallowed tradition of narcissistic pay-to-play campaign finance monetizing, it's clear that a Democratic-controlled legislative body will be of little help during the coming hard times.

Urban Enterprise Association? It's been annexed and gutted, existing only symbolically.

Develop New Albany? It's theoretically possible, although the organization's umbrella will have to get much bigger and its sad ongoing dependence on Gahan's political needs accordingly smaller.

City Hall as presently configured possesses no experience in dealing with a crisis. The rest of us will have to figure it out ourselves, and DNA needs to be a part of this solution. Exactly how is yet to be seen.

The Hyperlocal Support Small Businesses Need to Recover, by Patrice Frey (Governing)

It may be tempting, in coping with revenue losses brought on by the pandemic, for governments to reduce funding for community economic-development organizations, but it would be short-sighted.

With the recent replenishment of the Paycheck Protection Program, Congress and the Trump administration hope to avert a massive and catastrophic closure of small businesses amid the economic devastation of the COVID-19 crisis. But while the additional funds for the PPP are desperately needed, a successful rebound will require more than a one-time infusion of cash.

State and local elected officials will soon find that they are the next — and last — line of defense in protecting their communities (and tax rolls) from a failure of small businesses at a scale unlike any ever seen in this country. A recent study by our organization found that as many as 7.5 million small businesses are at risk in the coming months, especially those employing fewer than 20 people.

These businesses urgently need hyperlocal support systems that link businesses to resources that will aid them through the next 18 to 24 months. Fortunately, such support systems already exist in thousands of cities and neighborhoods across the country in the form of Main Street Programs, Business Improvement District associations and other kinds of downtown organizations. The local economic-development leaders who head these organizations are typically well known in their communities as trusted sources of information and as "connectors" to business support resources. They are also extremely knowledgeable about their communities' business environments and the local "players," which is invaluable in helping to broker creative solutions to get businesses through challenging times ahead.

And creative solutions will be in high demand. Small-businesses that survive stay-at-home orders, whether aided by the PPP or not, face a long and difficult recovery. Dramatic unemployment figures suggest that many Americans simply won't have the spending power they did before the crisis. Even where consumers are able to spend, their behavior is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic norms anytime soon. After stay-at-home orders are lifted, residual concerns regarding coronavirus transmission are likely to slow the recovery of the restaurants and retail and service businesses that are the heart of communities.

Business owners are likely to encounter a confusing patchwork of local, state, federal and philanthropic funding sources, and they are going to need help identifying suitable programs and navigating often-cumbersome application processes. They will also need advocates in their corner to work with property owners and negotiate lower or deferred rents, and they'll need assistance, where feasible, in transitioning some of their business to e-commerce. On this latter point, our research indicates that approximately two-thirds of small businesses have no online presence, a troubling figure given that online sales are likely to be a lifeline in the coming months.

The risk as state and local leaders look to trim budgets in the coming weeks and months is that they will cut any program that is not directly tied to health, human services and education. We've seen this before, post-Great Recession, when governments reduced or eliminated dollars for local business-support efforts. Such moves are short-sighted and have painful consequences, largely in the form of lost jobs and reductions to state and local revenue from taxes and fees. Ultimately, elected officials in many places elected to restart these programs, acknowledging that aid to local economic-development programs has a return on investment that far exceeds their cost.

In coming budget negotiations, elected officials will be wise to recognize that they are playing the long game in bringing their communities back from COVID-19. We can coax that recovery to a faster and stronger outcome if we can keep the focus of our support as hyperlocal as possible and if we can maintain the connector organizations that help small business on the ground, community by community. Ultimately, modest expenditures to support local economic-development organizations now will deliver a healthier and more stable tax base in the months and years to come.

Georgia restaurateur nails premature reopening: "This is about screwing the working class and small business, not about helping us."

Who is John Gianoulidis? At Mother Jones, Maddie Oatman tells us: Reopening a Restaurant Will Take a Lot More Than a Governor’s Order.

For the last five years, John Gianoulidis satisfied Atlanta-area residents’ craving for Greek food with gyros and baklava from his two diners, both called Kafenio, and a coffee shop. As paralysis from the coronavirus took hold last month, he made the tough decision to shut down one of the diners, which catered heavily to now-furloughed Delta Airlines employees, and laid off 14 employees from all the locations. He turned another location into a counter-service-only affair, and is now working seven days a week at both the diner and the coffee shop. Though he’s seen some demand for takeout meals, business has dropped off dramatically. “I’m just keeping my head above water,” he says.

But Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s announcement on April 20 that certain businesses in the state, including restaurants with dine-in service, would be allowed to reopen at the end of the month—and that no local ordinances can prevent them from doing so—did nothing to assuage Gianoulidis’ angst.

Kemp, backed by new guidelines released by President Donald Trump for reopening the economy, framed his decision as an effort to “get Americans back to work.” But as far as Gianoulidis was concerned, Kemp’s policy was just a way to shift the burden of the virus from the state back onto people like him. “Guys, this is about screwing the working class and small business,” he posted on Facebook that night, “not about helping us.”

Following is the referenced Facebook post by Gianoulidis.

April 20 at 10:18 PM

Here’s the deal.

Kemp mandates restaurants reopen, whether I reopen dining rooms or not.

I file for business interruption insurance, it does not go through since I am “allowed” to operate full capacity.

My landlord can demand all their money, since I am allowed to fully operate.

Furloughed staff that is collecting unemployment insurance have to come back to work or I have to let them go. Their unemployment insurance then goes on my tab.

If things blow up again, they are still on my tab not on the states, since they are no longer employed.

Guys, this is about screwing the working class and small business, not about helping us.

Thank you so much to everyone that voted this malignant tumor into office.

Before you don your camo and march off to protest scientific reality, take a moment and read the piece at Mother Jones. There remains a distant possibility you might learn something. The closing paragraph is striking.

Gianoulidis doesn’t feel ready to follow suit. When he does, he imagines he’ll pull half of his tables and make sure to continue asking himself: “Have I served the public in good conscience?” He thinks often of his parents, Greek immigrants who emigrated to New England in 1963. They “worked their tails off” in factories to save up enough to open a little pizza joint in Connecticut. Their story reminds him to keep moving forward right now. And if things in Georgia continue to unravel, he says, “Thankfully, I also have Greek citizenship.”

I feel a rant coming on: No, national chain restaurant franchises are not local mom 'n' pop shops.

On more than one occasion the past week there have been reminders from the local owners of national chain restaurant franchises that they’re mom and pop shops, too.

Jeeebus, this gets tiring. For background see the charts above and below, and then allow me to pound the desktop for a moment.

Taco Bell, Burger King, Culver’s, McDonald's -- whichever, whatever -- are not chains, they yell, because they’re franchises, and because the franchises are locally owned they’re not chains at all, and therefore, this 1,298th location cut from the same template is no different from Aladdin or Lady Tron’s.

We're locals just like you indies! We're mom and pop!

By the same mangled logic, the 2009 Ford Fusion that I inherited from my mother, which I believe was manufactured in Sonora (Mexico), magically becomes a “local” New Albanian automobile because I drive and operate it locally ... and because of this, I can take credit for building it by hand.

Uh huh. Look, you substituted money for creativity and bought a fully developed restaurant designed and programmed by others. You cannot change the menu on whim by substituting Frito Bandito Hot Browns for Roadkill Chalupas, but you’re quite happy to reap the benefits from national saturation advertising and sponsorship campaigns of the sort almost never available to genuine indie innovators.

Yes, it’s true that you must have enough money to buy the franchise and sufficient moxie to run it, but I’m guessing that bankers are far more cooperative with proven franchise financing than start-ups from scratch, and of course the entire point of franchising is to adjust the risk factor downward compared with start-ups by applying the sheer weight of huge and bland pervasiveness.

Which the public adores, even those who ought to know better.

It's ever harder to discuss matters like this without unleashing f-bombs. Franchisees are almost as annoying as those wealthy kids born on third base, convinced they hit a triple. It’s more like paying the umpire for a base on balls, trotting to first, and claiming to have been hit in the face by a pitch.

And, as a side note, genuine independent local small business owners know exactly what being hit in the face by a pitch feels like; it's how we learn, daily, without a safety net extended lovingly by a multinational.

All in it together? In terms of the pandemic, yes. But as it pertains to this idiocy about franchises being local, no, not really. Think you might stop pretending?

LIVE TO EAT: Randy Smith offers "a grass-roots campaign to support and sustain local eateries."

It's an excellent strategy for helping your favorite eateries without jumping through hoops. Just invest in your future meals by helping them pay the light bills now.

Thanks to Randy for contributing this idea. Have you purchased gift cards from your favorite independent local businesses? Tell me about it.

---

To the Editors:

Hi, guys. My spouse and I, as we've aged, are eating out less frequently. Part of that is a habit of healthy eating, but, frankly, my own business had never really contributed much to our household income.

We've also ramped up our travel via vacations, taking about 2 week-long vacations each year and a few long weekends. Necessarily, that boosts the number of occasions where we eat out. Someday I hope to share our favorite out-of-town dining experiences with you. We've had some great ones in Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, West Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

At root, though, we have a few local independent restaurants we love.

I wanted to talk to you about a grass-roots campaign to support and sustain local eateries. Yes, there are other such campaigns. But independent restaurants are "independent" and rarely are willing to ask for help.

Can't we who aren't struggling right now throw a few bucks to them?

Here's my proposal. Pick your 3 favorite independent restaurants. Call them and buy a gift certificate of $25, $50, $75, or $100.

Maybe you order takeout, too, but the pure cash infusion now in exchange for sustaining those restaurants into the future seems to me to be an invaluable investment.

Three of our favorites have suspended operations until further notice, and I regret that I can't invest in their futures right now. But those who are hanging in right now can use our help. And those other three will value our patronage when they return to "normality."

We are investing $75 each in Aladdin's Cafe on Bank Street, and Israel's Delicias de Mexico Gourmet on Market Street.

We stand ready to do the same for Cups and Cones on Vincennes Street, Hing Wang on Spring Street, and New Albanian on Plaza Drive. If you know how we can do that, let us know.

These are our favorites. You'll have your own. Pick three of them and invest in their futures. After all, they are one of the biggest contributors to our quality of life in New Albany.

Randy Smith, formerly of Destinations Booksellers, et al.

ATTENTION SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS: Let Randy Smith help you unravel the CARES Act.

Longtime local independent business owner Randy Smith posted the following yesterday on his social media pages. He's offering his time to help you determine how grassroots players like most of us can derive benefit from the newly enacted economic relief plan. Randy's contact information is herein. I'll be sharing this with friends via personal channels. You?

---

Do you have a small business in New Albany? Has COVID-19 hurt your ability to survive? Of course it has.

I’m one of you. I can help. No strings. No fees.

Thanks to Heather at my bank, I was able to learn how the CARES Act can help and I’m ready to help you apply for government assistance. You can borrow 10 weeks of payroll now and keep your staff employed. You can pay retention bonuses. And, if you handle it properly, you’ll never have to pay it back

I have the details and am ready to help. Call or text me at 812.944.5116 or email me at randysmith@outlook.com and I’ll share what I’ve learned.

Your bank is likely to be an SBA Preferred or Certified lender and they’ll be ready to lend as early as next week. But you need to be ready. You can use the loan proceeds for rent, utilities, and even for accounts payable. And you may never need to pay it back.

I’ve been a small business owner in New Albany for 16 years – Destinations Booksellers, Dueling Grounds Café, Flood Crest Press – and for decades before that across the U.S. In this crisis, I can help you survive.

Banks will lend now without collateral, credit checks, or personal guarantees. The SBA will guarantee your loan.

Let me know if I can help you apply for these unprecedented loans. We’re all in this together and we can keep our businesses alive.

Please share this as you see fit. Best wishes to all of you.

Level Up Bakery announces it will be closing.

Regrettably, the Level Up Bakery at 1001 Vincennes Street (right across from New Albany High School) has announced its imminent closing.

The text from Friday's Facebook post follows; it mentions the possibility of another two Saturdays of business in February during the winding-down, but it might be best to check the page first.

I concede to feeling personally culpable in the sense that we didn't go there often enough. My alibis are familiar. We don't go out as much as before ... there are so many places to choose from nowadays ... and because of Pints&union my orientation is toward downtown. I tried the best I could to let people know Level Up was there. In the end, small independent business is an extremely hard nut to crack.

Were it otherwise, and the chains the ones to fail -- not the indies.

---

Level Up Bakery is feeling sad.

February 14 at 2:22 PM

This is the post we've been dreading, but we've finally finished everything we needed to in order to be able to make the announcement. We are closing our doors at the end of this month. There are many things we can say were the stepping stones of this moment, but in the end it all comes down to there was no traffic. We have loved every minute we were here with the amazing people we had. We loved the kids from across the street. We loved the game nights that we had, and all of the fun stories that came out of them. We had so many plans that we couldn't wait to bring to life, but in the end we won't be able to do them. We have plans with MESA kitchen during the month of March, and those we will still do, but there will be no physical location for us. We might be able to do the Farmers Market during the summer, but it all will come down to how this all rides out in the next couple of weeks.

With that being said, we WILL be open on Saturdays so that we can try and push out all of our food and have a smooth closing. We haven't decided on what to do with the equipment yet, but if you or anyone you know is interested then PM us here. And although our business didn't succeed here, maybe another one can. So if you know of someone that is looking for a place to start a business and needs some good neighbors (seriously, these people are amazing and will do anything and everything to help you out too) hit us up as well and we'll get you started. We were going to release this video when we were ready for March, so now we will just do it for fun. Again, we are still doing the MESA kitchen things, just no bakery here on Vincennes 😞 You all have been awesome. Stay awesome, stay nerdy, and keep an eye out for us with Nerd Louisville doing some game nights there running games and having fun. Love you all.

Strandz & Threadz is celebrating 25 years on Vincennes Street in Uptown NA.

A bit of trivia: When Strandz & Threadz was known as Beauty World, it was located in the south wing of the NABC Pizzeria & Public House (where the game room is now).

McAfee proves yet again that the local chain newspaper's writers are perfectly capable when given the column inches to explicate a topic. Too bad about the abysmal news room management, but maybe some day it will change.

Strandz celebrates on Friday: "The owners are celebrating the business' anniversary from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Friday with an open house that will feature door prizes, drinks, appetizers and a trivia contest with a prize of a $250 gift card."

I'm not sure I can make it, but congratulations and best wishes from the 1117 East Spring Street Neighborhood Association.

Strandz & Threadz celebrates 25 years in Uptown New Albany, by Brooke McAfee (Hanson's Softening Folly)

NEW ALBANY — For several decades, a family atmosphere has been a key element of Strandz Salon & Threadz Specialty Shop on Vincennes Street in New Albany.

One reason is because it is a family business owned by three sisters, Stacy Tunnell, Julie Young and Stefanie Griffith. Another is the connections among staff and clients at the salon — Stefanie says the environment is reminiscent of the iconic bar in the television show, Cheers, "where everybody knows your name."

Strandz & Threadz is celebrating its 25th anniversary in business at 322 Vincennes S., where the three sisters set up shop in 1994. The family business actually goes back to 1985, when their parents, Betty and Paul Lenfert, purchased the House of Rosemary and Men's Corner salons on Grant Line Road, where Stacy was working as a hair stylist. The siblings purchased their parent's business in 1993 ...

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

Last week was Harvest Homecoming, and my city's favorite amok time kept me pinned to the tarmac, but now we're back to what passes for normal here in New Gahania, where "We're All Here Because We're Not All THERE."

This week as a run-up to Decision 2019, I'm headed back into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five straight days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult. I've already made the case for Mark Seabrook as mayor.

Now let's return to the voluminous case against Gahanism in five informative and entertaining installments.

During Jeff Gahan's 2011 campaign for mayor, he proffered numerous private assurances to the effect that two-way streets and traffic calming would be priorities. In retrospect the fact that these promises were not a matter of the public record was ominous.

It took five years and another election for Gahan to actually get around to implementing a two-way grid reversion downtown, and hindsight also affords us the opportunity to see that the project, as eventually dumbed-down, emasculated and diluted from consultant Jeff Speck's suggestions -- shall we say, Gahanized? -- would not ever be brought to fruition without being tied to the system of pay-to-play political patronage which has been Gahan's only true accomplishment in office.

In short, until no-bid contracts for firms like HWC Engineering could be spider-webbed to produce maximum campaign finance enhancement, matters like safety and support for independent small businesses were of no consequence to Gahan ... and his minions, chief among them David Duggins, who at the time was married to HWC's local queenpin.

Hence the following Rubicon crossing moment, as recounted in ON THE AVENUES in late 2014. A little more than two years later, the starving public servant Duggins was dispatched to serve as Exalted Grand Poobah at the New Albany Housing Authority, seized by Gahan in the same fashion as European imperialists used to pluck colonies like lush grapes from the hands of vestal virgins, and handed to Duggins along with what probably was the single largest pay increase ever witnessed by a bureaucrat in New Albany.

But that's another story. Neither Gahan's street grid cowardice nor his poor taste in underlings was the first manifestation of Jeff Gahan's "inspired by Pyongyang" personality cult. In the grand tradition of failed watercolor artists, seminary students and cobblers, this middling veneer salesman concluded early in the game that destiny was clearing a path for his brilliance -- and we've been reminded of it on a daily basis ever since.

Why?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

---

November 20, 2014

ON THE AVENUES: Really, the word “progressive” embarrasses you? That’s okay, because political cowardice disgusts me.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

We’ve all experienced those disturbing times during a verbal debate when you know you’ve been whipped.

Your opponent’s grasp of facts and overall rhetorical excellence has you pinned, wiggle room is gone, and disaster looms. You can hope only to limit the damage, and perhaps survive to debate another day.

So it was that one of those times did not occur on Tuesday morning, during or after the merchant meeting, when the city’s economic development director, David Duggins, both publicly and privately read me what he imagined was an impassioned riot act.

Unfortunately, all he managed to do was concede almost every point we’ve tried to make in the past year with respect to City Hall’s persistent errors, with the result that the third floor’s credibility reserve is coughing vapors.

It may have been exasperation, anger, envy at City Hall’s inability to respond in kind, or maybe even exhausted vulnerability. I’m intentionally omitting delusional arrogance, but whatever the rationale, Mr. Duggins’s words to me formed a composite, abject expression of institutional impotence, one reeking of raw political terror, and offering further ample evidence that especially since November 4, when the local Democratic Party suffered a purely epic thrashing at the polls, the once mighty machine’s threadbare wheels have thrown their bolts and are rolling merrily across the landscape.

The cement blocks are being fetched, a motley collection of meth heads stands by eager to salvage copper wiring, and a fleet of U-Hauls are being dispatched to facilitate the magic kingdom’s overdue housecleaning. Surveying the carnage, Dixiecrat Party chairman Adam Dickey has chosen the junior high school tactic of censoring social media, but it’ll take more than a prayer breakfast and another failed “get out the vote” drive to avoid impending disintegration.

My shovel’s in hand. Just tell me where to dig. Better yet, maybe a few of us can dig together.

---

Mr. Duggins said many amazing things during the course of the group meeting and the private chat following it. Once my jaw dropped the first time, I left it safely on the floor to avoid over-exertion.

Although Mr. Duggins has not ever owned an independent local business, he freely offered marketing advice to those who do. He took a departed shop owner to task for being a complainer, when all she ever did was ask why the city allowed an adjoining building to fall quite literally to pieces outside her front window.

Perhaps the building commissioner was busy leveling historic buildings elsewhere.

Mr. Duggins openly conceded that the city does not customarily address sidewalks or sewers until a developer or realtor steps in, and an investor makes the first expenditure, and he brushed aside the counter argument that doing so beforehand actually might spur greater investment and constitute an actual economic development program, as opposed to piecemeal infusions of scattershot cash.

But it was my prodding on two-way streets, traffic calming and walkability that prompted the most memorable portion of the dialogue, and in the process, snapped this camel’s back.

---

To reprise, it has long been NAC’s contention that compared with pro-active “by the usual chamber of commerce numbers” efforts aimed at economic development as defined by the tired imperative of the suburban industrial park, this administration has neither understood the economic implications of independent local business, nor has bothered to openly embrace any organized, overt effort or plan to be of assistance to them.

Furthermore, while conceding that an economic development plan for independent local businesses, especially those located in a bloc amid the historic business district core, might be an unfair challenge to One Southern Indiana caliber non-thinkers in the absence of readily identifiable templates, we’ve insisted that thinking outside self-imposed boxes is by no means impossible. After all, these independent local businesses have invested heavily in themselves, with time, money and enthusiasm – and with almost no assistance from municipal governmental entities apart from “moral” support.

This is why we’ve consistently pointed to the city’s street grid as the ideal, contemporary infrastructure “bonus” readily available for molding into an asset occupying an extensive geographical area, one that enhances the urban experience for residents and visitor alike, whether working, shopping or living in or near downtown.

We’ve pointed to walkable and bikeable streets as an organic whole, running two ways, completed and calmed, and connected to IU Southeast, the Purdue Center, the Greenway and the Knobs, comprising New Albany’s only realistic equivalent of a magnet and generator comparable to the Big Four Bridge in Jeffersonville, because what makes the Big Four so special is that it is not at all special – it is open and available for public use every single day, not every now and then.

So it might be with two-way streets and walkability in New Albany, which brings us to the Jeff Speck study, as commissioned a full two years after mayor Jeff Gahan took office, in spite of campaign assurances that street reform would be pursued energetically.

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And so it transpired that when queried about two-way streets, Mr. Duggins revealed a mind-blowing factoid guaranteed to impress, nay, astound, those who closely follow local events. For not once but twice, and in the strongest terms, he demanded that I come to grips with the ongoing Jeff Gahan term as undoubtedly the most progressive era in recent New Albany municipal history, and quite likely the most progressive period ever -- in a city that celebrated its 196th birthday just last year.

As proof, Mr. Duggins pointed in effect to the very absence of two-way street conversions, asking me to accept as evidence of City Hall’s innate progressivism an unrealized, barely enunciated intent – the many shadowy, non-transparent, Rosenbargian behind-the-scenes steps the city has taken thus far to commission Speck’s study, and to perhaps someday glacially come around to considering the incremental possibility of timidly sticking its toes into the waters of two-way streets and an accompanying, comprehensive street grid reform plan.

You see? Dyed-in-the-wool progressivism … in camouflage.

I was very confused. In fact, only moments before this presentation of Gahan’s solidly FDR-like progressive record, and still quite dazed at the Orwellian fog suddenly shrouding the proceedings, Mr. Duggins had somewhat imperiously dismissed the notion that those business owners in attendance might wish to talk about the street grid. Mind you, it was not his meeting to chair, and not his agenda to write. In essence, he refused to address the topic publicly. In fairness, he probably wasn’t happy with me for asking questions of substance.

Since he wouldn’t talk about streets while the others were there, I was compelled to wait until they had gone, and only then asked: If City Hall is a progressive entity, and if it recognizes the absolute necessity of street grid reform to help people like those in the room, as well as neighborhoods and the city’s prospects overall – as it constantly claims it does, privately – then in the name of wholly Jeeebus, why not lead the discussion?

Why not make sure that independent local business owners know the proven record of two way streets in promoting downtown business districts?

Why not make sure that neighborhood residents know the proven record of walkability enhancement in improving quality of life and lifting their property values?

Why not ensure support for the reform by getting out in front of the issue, driving it, and doing precisely what advocates are supposed to do?

Fairly paraphrased, here is the reply.

While impeccably progressive, City Hall could not possibly appear to be advocating progressive measures, not ever, because to do so would be to enable the administration’s powerful and dangerous naysaying enemies, who in spite of Jeff Gahan’s 64% vote tally in 2011 – the most lopsided majority in decades – somehow retain their uncanny ability to disrupt the mayor’s well-ordered universe at the merest hint of progressive leanings, because the “Old Guard” would be incited to … to …

To do what, exactly?

Well, to name the most prominent living example, any public appearance of progressivism on the part of City Hall would incite “Old Guard” stalwarts like Republican county commissioner Mark Seabrook -- of course the mayor dramatically and repeatedly spit in his eye during the course of the city-county parks department split, but that was different -- to rear back and belittle the helpless mayor by bellowing, “Ha Ha – you’re just appeasing those nasty progressives with two-way streets! Whatcha gonna do next, have some kind of FAIRNESS ordinance?" 

(Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but no. I’m paraphrasing, but honoring the tone. How could I make this up?)

Hence, the institutionalized New Albany City Hall Department of the Way on Down, Down Low, shielding the progressivism that dare not speak its name, a malady that only Speck’s study can dissipate, because then, and only then, can an administration with a 2/3 electoral mandate, but which remains terrified of Seabrook’s schoolyard taunts, finally point to the egg-head consultant’s findings and deploy them as the political cover it cannot function without. Note that I’d freely accused them of this very weakness on numerous occasions – and now the city’s economic development director wasn’t even trying to deny it.

Being the stubborn sort, I persisted: And yet, really, why couldn’t City Hall engage small business owners to explain the virtues of a walkable street grid?

If we did that and even one small business failed, they’d blame us.

Of course, right now, as it stands, the city’s interminable, fear-driven delay of street grid reform is quite effectively achieving the very same result, by leaving in place a one-way arterial street grid that nullifies every penny-ante ribbon cutting and “stay open late” promotion tossed into the air by increasingly desperate indie shop owners in the absence of a downtown economic development plan, because while street grid reform could be so very helpful, and constitute an economic development plan in itself, it would fatally embarrass a Democratic mayor to be seen openly advocating it.

It's exactly as if Gahan were to say it's okay to be gay, just as long as you don't kiss in public.

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It’s simple.

I’m proud to be identified as a progressive, and what's more, I'm capable of presenting my reasons and arguing my points. But I’m far more ashamed of myself for supporting Gahan in 2011 than he is embarrassed at the ignominy of the term “progressive.” All I can do is learn from my mistakes. He doesn't believe he's made any. There's a difference.

One more thing.

Late in the chat, Mr. Duggins suggested I stop lashing the discredited, careerist city me-development wrecker John Rosenbarger, saying that at best, he was no more than a figurehead for the Main Street plan, and cannot be blamed for constantly acting through the years in such a way as to maintain his employment, even if it meant a steady stream of blatant lies sufficient to make Pinocchio blush.

I shrugged, but Mr. Duggins continued, assuring me that he’d never be one of those careerists like Rosenbarger; after all, he certainly isn’t making very much money working for the city of New Albany, and while personally loyal to the sitting mayor, he’d someday get out when the getting was good.

Teeth clenched, I smiled.

As one who has invested his entire life savings in a downtown business, and arises each day wondering when or if there'll be a return, there’s nothing like having the city's economic development director -- you know, the one without an economic development plan -- tell you that hes footloose and fancy free, and able to leave any time he wishes.

I won’t even waste a stray “go to hell” or "fuck off" on cluelessness of that astounding magnitude.

It's quite enough, thank you. If you refuse to take ownership, you’re not getting credit. Blame is another matter. Local Democrats in general, and the current administration in particular, always have dismissed progressive ideas because they feared no consequences. As such, we’re obliged to try to prove them wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines, because the insurgency begins right ... now.

Beleaguered merchants at Underground Station await the Board of Works' next crushing street closure bombardment.

How much more construction closures and special events disruptions can these merchants take and still survive?

Added together, the last-minute Bank and Main signal project (wouldn't a 4-way stop have sufficed as opposed to yet another signature half-million-dollar Gahan campaign finance monetization boondoggle?) and the rear parking lot closure for Harvest Homecoming will total a full month of business pattern interruption, with precious little advance information provided to people who've invested in bricks and mortar and learned the hard way that the utterly non-transparent Team Gahan doesn't understand anything about what it means to be in business, unless "being in business" means grandstanding at ribbon-cuttings.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Main and Bank work to begin on Monday the 13th -- or was that Friday the 16th?

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: The shenanigans and ass-hattery of Deaf Gahan's last-minute Main and Bank stop light project have commenced.

"Aladdin's and all the merchants at the Underground Station will be open regular business hours during the complete reconstruction of Bank St. in front of the Underground Station."

Slick Jeffie's $500,000 stop light project at the intersection of Main and Bank, the urgent need for which has been apparent for at least six years, was stupidly delayed until the middle of September because of the mayor's self-glorification imperatives elsewhere. It then was decreed that a two- to three-month project would be completed in 27 days -- because of election year politics.

But everyone forgot about the OTHER 800-lb gorilla: Harvest Homecoming's carnival rides, hence this morning's abrupt notification that much of the parking on the south side of the Underground Station block will be closed until October 17.

Open, but ...

The Reisz Mahal is the only thing moving here.

A business owner sent this update:

"Thank you. A number of businesses here have clients and patients with mobility issues who require ADA compliant accessibility, which was torn up and made completely unusable with no notice to us or our clients."

I can hear the whining of Gahan's minions: Can't people just walk? As if a single one of the privileged time-servers grasped what walkability really means amidst their incessant car-centric "improvements."

Or, walk -- like all those people did, past an entire blocked block of Market last weekend, to behold barbecue they couldn't purchase, from a landscape that resembled a KOA campground.

Shouldn't the Board of Works be helping small businesses to remain in business?

Or do we take Gahanism to its logical conclusion and begin tithing donations to Gahan to protect us from Gahan?

I'll be updating this story as merited.

Sherman Minton Refusal: The two-way street grid stays as it is, jack, and if we're smart we'll double down on walkability.

In about a year and a half, the city will face a very big challenge over a period of up to four years. The Sherman Minton Bridge repair regimen will be terribly disruptive, to say the least.

The saddest part of all this is the timing.

At precisely the point when we should be talking about improving Jeff Gahan's lacklustre, lowest-common-denominator approach to making New Albany's densest urban areas more walkable and bikeable, by sensibly slowing traffic and incrementally curbing the automobile imperialism that reigns hereabouts, instead we're about to spend the next five years talking about nothing except cars and the "right" of drivers to impose their wills on the cosmos.

Well, no. Not exactly. Already I've heard hints from the car-centric to the effect that the only way to cope with the coming disruptions is to "temporarily" re-revert downtown streets to one-way traffic -- you know, so drivers and get from one end of town to the other more quickly.

Nope.

Principled community leaders (and candidates in this fall's election) need to state cleatly that Gahan's street-grid baby steps -- while too laughably timid by half -- aren't negotiable. Furthermore, as yet stillborn efforts to slow traffic and make the historic city center safe for all users, not just the ones jangling their car keys, need to be revived, implemented and ratcheted up.

Sherman Minton Insanity does not change one important, fundamental fact, because the object remains to better utilize the potential of the city's density by making it a place people want to live, work and play, and not merely drive through.

Yes, outsiders need to be able to get to us. However, residents also need to "get it," and to understand that surrendering to the tyranny of the pass-through motorist constitutes failure, not success.

For the sake of the internal combustion engine, as utilizing an interstate highway bridge already over-used owing to toll evasion, New Albany might well become road kill.

Last evening I was called to task for saying unkind things on the interwebz about INDOT, but the fact of the matter is that INDOT exists to serve the interests of the Sherman Minton as a high-speed, pass-through component of a larger car-centric transportation grid. INDOT cares little about collateral damage in New Albany, a city standing to benefit mightily from low-speed, stay-a-while use.

Happily, much of what has come out of last evening's meeting indicates a shared determination for New Albany businesses to unify and begin (at long last) thinking collectively about the need to "sell" the outside world on New Albany. We're facing a potentially existential threat, and unity is the best way to prepare for it.

It would be nice to hear City Hall's take on this matter -- BEFORE the election.

The results of the 2019 Independent Business Survey from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Learn who they are and what they do.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance challenges concentrated economic and political power, and instead champions an approach in which ownership is broadly distributed, institutions are humanly scaled, and decision-making is accountable to communities. We believe that economic systems should embody democratic values, and that democracy can thrive only when economic power is widely dispersed. We believe that communities are healthiest when they possess the authority, capacity, and responsibility to chart their own course. We call this vision local self-reliance.

Then read the results of the ILSR's indie business survey.

The results of the 2019 Independent Business Survey from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance demonstrate the strength and resiliency of small, independent businesses. They also speak to the forces independents see as significant threats and roadblocks to their businesses: a playing field made uneven by policies that favor their bigger competitors, highly concentrated markets for key supplies and services, and difficulty securing capital, among other barriers.

As we have documented in previous surveys, independent businesses have proven nimble during a period of dramatic shifts in technology and consumer habits. Much of their resilience can be traced to the distinct benefits they provide to their customers, industries, and communities.

Yet, despite these competitive advantages and their broader importance to the U.S. political economy, independent businesses are under threat and declining in most industries. The findings of our 2019 Independent Business Survey suggest that the problem isn’t changing technology or consumer habits. Instead, independent business owners say they are often competing on a unlevel playing field. Many public policy decisions in recent years have fueled market concentration and favored their big competitors.

This survey’s findings shed light on these challenges and policy issues. In their comments, business owners also offer insight and guidance to elected officials looking to build a more equitable, entrepreneurial, competitive, and dynamic economy.

More than 1,000 independent businesses nationwide participated in this survey. Retailers made up about half of the responses, while the remainder represented a mix of industries, from service providers to manufacturers, banks, wholesalers, and more. In addition to the main questions, business owners provided hundreds of written responses on various topics. We analyzed these for additional insights and quoted a representative sample in this report ...

Sherman Minton Calamity-ewal project team to meet with NA business owners, Wed., Aug. 21.

It says so in the placard. The great thing about having meetings at a place like Wick's is that lots of disaster planning medicine is close at hand.

The Green Mouse ponders whether Jeff Gahan will attend Wednesday evening's session at Wick's. On the one hand, he doesn't own a business. On the other, he thinks he owns them all.

Sherman Minton Bridge leadership litmus test as Mark Seabrook stays for the entire meeting, while Jeff Gahan lasts seven whole minutes.

It's the morning after the Sherman Minton Bridge meeting, and Alka-Seltzer isn't helping Dear Leader's mood.

It's the business of being in business: Matt McMahan explains the Cox's-to-Boomtown Kitchen story ... then drops the mic.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks in local food and drink circles. 

Cox's Hot Chicken's location in New Albany closed, then it was revealed that the space would become Boomtown Kitchen, a name recalling a short-lived festival.

Seems that every one's an expert when it comes to food and drink on the Internet -- even me.

ON THE AVENUES: Challenges are forever, but downtown New Albany's food and drink purveyors keep on keeping on.

Consequently it's refreshing to have Matt McMahan tell the story, which he did earlier today on Facebook. Whatever one's opinion about Matt (and there are many, as with me) his grasp of dollars and sense in a small business context cannot be denied. Big Four was successful, but the purchasing group couldn't hold it together, so Matt brokered a different outcome.

Zero drama, just the facts. The Boomtown Kitchen idea sounds pleasingly old-school to me: just be a restaurant and please diners. Let's hope it flies high.

Matt has given permission to reprint here.

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Just finally read this article* last night ... it’s funny how the local paper calls and emails me 20 times for an interview acting all nice then when they get what they want they write about negatives instead of positives. The whole time they try to get me to say something bad about someone. That’s all they feed off of. Pretty sad honestly. Here’s what should be said about the whole situation:

We ran Big Four Burgers for 5 years in Jeff and 3 years in NA ... yes, we had some bad service but overall we were successful. The entire time BFB posted quarterly profits. I own the building in Jeff and leased the building in New Albany. I decided to sell both concepts to relieve some stress. A group of guys purchase both stores. I financed the deal to the buyers. When they bought the stores their intentions were to rebrand as Big Four Brewhouse. Several months in they decided to go a different direction. I didn’t like that decision because I believed in our product but that wasn’t my decision. Nor did we have any contract for them to NOT be able to do it. They had different partners between both stores. New Albany store partnership fell apart and the easiest way was for me to step in and take back the store. Their Jeff store is still going strong and doing fine.

I just hate how they say “Three concepts to try out Southside space” as in the other two failed. It’s the American Dream to build a business from NOTHING and sell for a HUGE profit. Which I did. The new owners had a dream and took a HUGE chance and spent a lot of money on their dream. I believe if they had a better working relationship with partners they would still be in business today. With that being said, everything happens for a reason. The Collins are going to absolutely crush it with Boomtown Kitchen ! So #SupportLocal and don’t be a hater!

* New concept to replace Cox's Hot Chicken in New Albany, by Jason Thomas (TomMay Content Coagulator)

David White for Mayor videos: State of the City #3, Parts 1 and 2 on the general theme of economic development.

Viewers and voters are free to agree or disagree with David White's points about economic development, but what can't be denied is that if Jeff Gahan actually has an economic development plan apart from pay-to-play, we know next to nothing about it after eight years.

Gahan's first quarter CFA-4 has been filed, and it's another massive, quivering edifice of pay-to-play cash.

Like so many other aspects of Gahan's reign, his economic development strategies are to be coded and kept safely hidden, so when something positive actually happens, no criteria exist to determine whether Team Gahan had anything to do with the result -- as with HMS Maritime's upgrade, which is almost entirely the work of One Southern Indiana, not Dear Leader.

HMS Maritime's downtown expansion is a positive development, one largely omitting City Hall.

David and I have spoken often about grassroots economic development strategies of the sort espoused by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) and the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). There are many ways to achieve cooperation between local government and local entrepreneurs, short of prom planning and Taco Walks.

Although first, City Hall has to want to be cooperative. That's something I'm confident you'll see quite a lot more of during David's time as mayor.

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Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing. 

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors. 

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7.