Nawbany's ubiquitous used cars? They're "a symptom of having such a high concentration of poverty."

Earlier this week:

Traffic Cluster, Part One: Mt Tabor Road? It's the design. You know, the design we just paid millions ... to design.

Traffic Cluster, Part Two: We'll never resolve traffic issues until "leadership" is willing to lead, not pander.

But just before them, I wrote in reference to statue rectification: "Give 'em time, and we'll have statues of automobiles. I volunteer to be first in line when it comes to bringing those symbols down."

Taken together, these thoughts of pervasive and unaddressed automobile supremacy in Nawbany prompted reader John Q. Curmudgeon (no relation to T. Potable) to write this letter to the editor.

Don't worry. He's real.

Are you?

---

We already have monuments to automobiles in New Albany. Plenty of them. It's doubtful anyone can find another 14.94 square miles in the U.S. that has more ratty little "car lots", car parts stores and other auto related businesses than New Albany, Indiana.

Cheap used cars are for sale, parked on every corner in the town - used “luxury”, “high-end cars” are offered across from a funeral home, on a highway masquerading as a residential street. Another “luxury” car lot is across the street from the YMCA.*

Not a single new car dealership in New Albany - just used cars.

It’s a symptom of having such a high concentration of poverty. Banks make good money on auto loans and lend for them freely (because the car is the loan’s collateral), but not a single new car dealership in New Albany. Not enough money in circulation, not enough people to justify the investment. Sellersburg has new car dealerships, with one-tenth of the number of households in New Albany.

Apparently, most automobiles in New Albany are used and apparently falling apart, barely kept running judging from the number of parts stores and garages.

Auto parts stores are everywhere within New Albany’s small 14 square miles - two auto glass and paint locations, two NAPA parts stores, two O’Reilly Autoparts stores, a hub cap and wheel store, AutoZone Auto Parts, Advance Auto Parts, Bennett's Auto Parts, New Albany Auto Parts & Machine Shop, Bumper to Bumper, Auto Warehouse Inc., Walmart Auto Care Center, Tire Discounters, Big O Tires - and more corner, shade tree mechanic shops.

We don’t notice New Albany’s many monuments to the automobile - because we’ve grown numb to them.

When parking four old cars with “$300 down” written in white shoe polish on their windshields is the “highest and best use” of a high-traffic downtown corner lot, it’s a glaring example that no one values retail and business opportunities in New Albany. Another symptom of having such a high concentration of poverty.

Every article I read regarding the growing restaurant business in New Albany usually includes the phrase “get people across the bridge from Louisville.” There’s a reason. When the little corner car lots go, maybe we’ll see more opportunity for everyone.

---

* As to the lot across from the YMCA, reader NC writes: "I closed the lot about 3 years ago when my mom had a stroke. It sat empty for a couple years, the cars that were for sale on it were other lots parking them there or people we didn’t even know parking them there (every once in awhile the guys from the Firestone would sell a car off of it with permission ... it’s a mechanic shop for about the last year. So might want to edit that part, but yea Todd (Coleman) still owns it and rents it to the the owners of the shop. I’ve heard a couple rumors it could be for sale, but I’m not 100%. Could be just rumors."

Editor, Heal Thyself: The NewsBune's management gets all touchy with me, and it's hilariously revealing.

Newspapermen and women can be relied upon to down a few shots of Old Self Righteous, and then remind the remainder of us on the "outside" about the absolutely vital and valiant role their publications play in holding influential interests accountable to the people, whether these are governments, oligarchs or any other human contrivance that finds secrecy helpful in perpetuating connivance and preserving power.

But if you're looking for some really cheap laughs, lay off the hootch and ask the newspaper itself to be accountable to its own purported mission of accountability. You'll notice the walls against scrutiny going up faster than you can say "Look, is that investigative journalism's corpse floating over there in Silver Creek?"

To me, it's not at all an unreasonable question to ask: How many reporter salaries are made possible by municipal advertising purchases?

I raised this and a few other points in a letter to the News and Tribune, and someone -- the editor, the publisher, or maybe the guy delivering sandwiches from Jimmy Johns -- couldn't help but append a visibly annoyed answer, seeking to attack me as a hypocrite while predictably refusing to address my concerns.

This is displacement and evasion, and rhetorical weakness of this degree probably isn't deserving of comment, but because I'm transparent, here goes: I no longer own a business, but when I did, I'd have had absolutely no issue whatever with releasing our financial records, because there wasn't anything in them to hide. In fact, we always thought it would be quite informative for folks to see just how much money we weren't making in the food and drink business.

Of course the newspaper's situation is far different. We claimed only to be serving food and drink. The newspaper depicts itself in heroic terms, willing at the drop of a hat to stress its own critical importance as a quasi-ombudsman (supposedly) comforting the afflicted and affilcting the comfortable.

Neither will that dog hunt, nor is the escape clause to avoid self-accountability convincing: "Wait, we're a private, for-profit, non-locally-owned business, and you'll receive no answers from us."

Phooey.

Given the amount of ads run by New Albany and Jeffersonville alone, both from classified placements that cities are compelled to make (the rates for which ALL newspapers continue to raise extortionately) and the discretionary self-glorification memes preferred by Jeff Gahan and Mike Moore (read: political ads in all except the fudged invoice descriptions), this money is a potential conflict of interest, plain and simple.

Deflect all you wish, Susan, Bill and the gang. The light's pointed at you, not me.

---

Reader expected records editorial

Mike Moore kicked off the year in a blatant fit of sheer greed, and it wasn’t very pretty.

The Jeffersonville mayor’s inelegantly stage-managed bid for a 30 percent raise was so egregious that even our local chain newspaper took note, and rightly mounted the soapbox in protest.

Naturally, later this year at the annual shill ceremony concocted by its corporate master, the News and Tribune will win an award for best coverage of municipal events occurring just outside the office door, before adjourning to attend mocktail party for Alabama pensioners.

Just as predictably, in New Albany our City Hall expended six full months in a coordinated effort to rebuff “sunshine law” public information requests before being called on the carpet and fined by a judge.

Nope, not a peep from the principled editorial team at the News and Tribune.

It’s worth repeating that one of the information requests spurned by New Albany’s spigot-smothering city functionaries sought clarity about the amount of money spent each year by City Hall via its contract with ProMedia for purely discretionary advertisements, often thinly-veiled mayoral campaign ads, with this money flowing to places exactly like the News and Tribune.

Not one of the three links in this chain of taxpayer cash — city, contractor or newspaper — will tell us the answer to a simple question: Exactly how much money is involved?

Where’s the transparency in this situation, exalted newspaper editorialists?

Thankfully one of these links, city government, is subject to Indiana state law pertaining to the necessity of honoring information requests, and yet instead of obeying the law, it threw a tantrum and delayed compliance until after the election, and only when forced to do so by the judiciary.

If the newspaper won’t call out this sort of behavior, who will?

— ROGER A. BAYLOR

New Albany

EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no statute of limitations on encouraging office holders to be transparent in their dealings, including allowing access to public records. New Albany erred and was compelled by a judge to provide the requested records. We are encouraged that city officials — finally — did the right thing and urge them to comply with records requests more expediently in the future. Their misstep will no doubt be fodder for future editorials dealing with transparency in government.

We aren’t aware of any business, though — including yours, Mr. Baylor — that opens its financial records to the public. We do not discriminate against people or entities — including cities and politicians — who want to advertise with us.

Rules for election letters to the Daily Journal of the Tom May Writers' Colony, formerly known as the News and Tribune.

If the News and Tribune genuinely valued "fairness to the candidates," the sinking newspaper wouldn't support the sham candidate "forums" sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

But I digress.

Here are the rules for submitting election-related letters to the editor of the Jeffersonville newspaper, followed by a recent example of one.

---

Out of fairness to the candidates in the Nov. 5, 2019, General Election, the News and Tribune will be cutting off election-related letters several days before voters go to the polls.

The last day to submit election letters to the News and Tribune is Tuesday, Oct. 29. Here’s how:

• Letters can be submitted in person or through the U.S. Postal Service to our New Albany office (318 Pearl St., Suite 100) and Jeffersonville office (221 Spring. St.) by close of business Oct. 29.

• Electronic submission of letters through our website (newsandtribune.com) or by email (newsroom@newsandtribune.com) must be timestamped by midnight that day.

Letters received after the deadline will not be published. Maximum length is 600 words. The last day the News and Tribune will publish election-related letters before the election is Friday, Nov. 1.

---

Now for a sample letter.

Incumbent Gahan best choice for mayor

I read Randy Smith’s letter of Sept. 26 and could not disagree more with his assertions. Smith, a long-time and well-known political opponent of Mayor Gahan ...

Well, let's see. If this letter writer, who apparently is an officer in a regional electrician's union that previously has donated to Payhan's campaign ... and who quite possibly is benefiting from the boom borne of Beach Blanket TIF Bingo ... utterly fails to note all this background in his puff piece, then I'm not really obliged to link to it.

What's more, I've also been "a long-time and well-known political opponent of Mayor Gahan."

How 'bout some equal time, Mr. May?

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

Last week was Harvest Homecoming, and my city's favorite festival 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."

There was no time to conjure a column during Harvest Homecoming, so 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 argument for Mark Seabrook as mayor here. Now let's return to the voluminous case against Gahanism in five informative and entertaining installments.

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

---

June 21, 2018

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

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

If someone ignored the "no soliciting" sign on your porch and clambered up to the door, breathlessly offering to sell you a gizmo with the promise that the mere fact of owning it will save you all kinds of money, there are many good questions you might ask.

Of course, you might also command the huckster to vacate your porch, or else. I generally do. But in order to determine whether the peddler's product is a sound investment, one specific question tops the list:

How much does it cost?

Mayor Jeff Gahan is a former veneer salesman with a well-honed, thoroughly greasy sales pitch, and he thinks you're too stupid to ask how much a new city hall is going to cost you -- in tax dollars.

The (Reisz) project will save millions of dollars over time, as the city has paid costs in its current location for over 57 years. It will also help the surrounding businesses see their private investment backed up by pubic investment.

Take a magnifying glass to the undisguised gloating amid yesterday's city hall press release, stating that the multi-million dollar Reisz renovation is a done deal and a fixed formality, and further opposition from the likes of YOU is plainly useless, and you'll find absolutely no mention of the price tag.

Please allow me to fill in this blank.

The Reisz cost commitment already has topped $10,000,000 in a city where perhaps a quarter of the residents live below the poverty line; where Gahan and his new unofficial deputy mayor and slavish devotee David Barksdale are eager to demolish half of the city's public housing units; and where city hall has yet to mention aloud minor details like the opioid epidemic, the accompanying rise in thievery and petty crime, homelessness, and the worsening plight of our city's working poor.

The sloganeering is so oppressive that a Trump rally seems like the knitter's circle coffee klatsch by comparison.

Government lives matter!

(so, let's literally quadruple the size of municipal government)

Buildings not people!

(because elite cliques need historic fetishes, too)

If you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford it!

(it might be the only truthful statement yet uttered by these purported Democrats)

Team Gahan and affiliates can do the math, all right, so long as most of it is concealed.

What eludes them is simple human empathy.

---

Last week the News and Tribune's most inconsistent editor got to work defending the imperatives of government buildings over those of residents.

He begins by inferring an economic ripple effect from a single government-occupied building, without bothering to try to interpret economic conditions and trends downtown.

MORRIS: Reisz rehab would give downtown a boost, by Chris Morris (Where Multiple Tom Mays Roam)

 ... But the area needs another boost. Some businesses have closed recently while others are struggling. Just think what could happen with a vibrant city hall in a refurbished Reisz building, in the heart of our downtown. With life put back into a building that has sat empty for years, others may decide to invest and open a business, or at the very least visit the downtown. The downtown needs this project.

Morris saves his weakest argument for last.

I am a fan of uni-gov — otherwise known as one government for New Albany and Floyd County, and being in favor of adding another government building to the tax rolls goes against that theory. Uni-gov would eliminate duplicated services, there wouldn’t be these power struggles or personality conflicts, and it would save taxpayers money. Too much government only gets in the way of people trying to live their lives ...

 ... So why would I support spending money to rehabilitate this building, guaranteeing two separate government buildings just blocks apart? Even with a uni-gov the City-County Building will be needed for office space and to allow the courts to expand. That building is also in need of some renovation, but that is for another day ...

... It’s a big move but one I think the city needs to take. There are no other options on the table for the building and this makes the most sense. The downtown needs a boost, and putting city hall inside the Reisz Furniture building may be exactly what is needed. It’s worth the gamble.

Worth the $10,000,000 (or more) gamble, like it's Monopoly money?

If there is a consistent theme to the prevailing Reisz apologetic, it echoes the immortal words of Basil Fawlty: "Don't mention the cost!"

Or: Don't mention the opportunity cost, because we'll be spending an extra $400,000 a year for one government building when the money might be combined with private sector investments to assist dozens of other deserving historic structures downtown and those small businesses and residences occupying them, as well as incentivizing infill construction to fill vacant lots.

Alas, we've long understood that Morris's veneration of "respectable" authority is such that he'll automatically take the side of anyone and anything he's loosely capable of identifying as a selfless community pillar.

Morris comes perilously close to openly acknowledging that this fact-free approach is contradictory as it pertains to uni-gov, and yet he churns out the logic sausage as predictably as Team Gahan and HWC Engineering render Jeff Speck's walkability into more of the same car-centrism.

I asked the newspaper for a similar word count in rebuttal. To my mild surprise, the offer was accepted, and I wrote the following. It was published yesterday; this is the "Director's Cut," leaving intact two passages I was asked by the editor to remove. You'll probably be able to guess which ones.

---

Last week the News and Tribune’s Chris Morris supported governmental intervention ostensibly aimed at “saving” the Reisz Furniture Warehouse by renovating it into a lavish new city hall.

I’d love to see Reisz put to use, just not like this. To understand why, let’s follow the money.

Dating to 1852, the Reisz building has been a flour mill, funeral home and shirt factory. Purchased by Schmitt Furniture in 1988, it served mostly as cheap storage.

At any point during three decades, Schmitt might have opted to “save” Reisz but didn’t, and so a central point of Mayor Jeff Gahan’s case for adaptive reuse is a suddenly urgent need to rectify the "dilapidated” building’s “neglect” (his words).

Apparently there are no penalties in New Albany for structure abuse.

Last August the Redevelopment Commission authorized funds for Gahan’s relocation project, at the time neither subject to an RFP (request for proposal), nor approved by city council. Detailed explanations were offered by Denton Floyd Real Estate Group, with whom Gahan is partnering, as though the deal already had been sealed.

Perhaps this occurred when former redevelopment tsar David Duggins accompanied Denton Floyd last fall for a limousine junket to Keeneland.

By May of 2018, the RFP formality was hurdled. $750,000 passed from Redevelopment to Denton Floyd, including the purchase price of $390,000, with the remainder to empty the building of junk.

Denton Floyd would complete the 23,000-square-foot buildout for city hall’s relocation (currently City Hall uses 6,500 sq. ft. at the City County Building), with a 15-year “rent to own” lease.

Yearly payments will be $570,000, or $8,500,000 over 15 years. By comparison, $200,000 during the same period in the City County Building totals $3,000,000. Another $500,000 is approved for office furnishings, surely a low estimate.

Ten months ago the city’s combined yearly cost at Reisz was estimated at $215,000. It’s more than tripled since then, with just shy of $10,000,000 committed to the project. The total cost of ownership inevitably will rise; in addition to inevitable price hikes, county officials insist the city remains bound to its current landlord. Lawsuits are likely.

20% of the city’s population lives below the poverty line, yet Gahan, who concurrently seeks to demolish half our public housing units, wants to spend an additional $370,000 - $400,000 yearly on city offices, citing the ripple effects of economic development that relocation will generate.

We should be asking whether these ripple effects are real or imagined.

The most persistent advocate of the Reisz project is David Barksdale, historic preservationist and city councilman, who thinks Reisz must be renovated at any cost, and presumably, since limitless costs are government’s responsibility, seeks largess from a bottomless well of cash.

Barksdale touts the project as “skin in the game,” a way of showing downtown stakeholders that City Hall stands with them.

After all, entrepreneurs and small independent business owners have invested $60 million or more into downtown during the past decade, while enjoying few of the subsidies available to suburban industrial park occupants.

Barksdale’s argument is flawed. Private investors spend their own money, but the money required for the municipality’s funding of a single speculative historic preservation project isn’t cash from Gahan’s or Barksdale’s pockets.

Rather, this “skin” belongs to the city’s taxpayers – and they haven’t been asked.

Naturally downtown stakeholders need functional “skin” in the game, this being shared, collective infrastructure, including streets, sewers, police and firefighters. These are grassroots needs, citywide.

City Hall spending almost $10 million on itself? That’s a top-down want.

Some compare a new city hall with the YMCA. It’s absurd. The YMCA brings people downtown who might not otherwise come. Moving city offices three whole blocks changes nothing. The same workers come to work, and they eat the same lunch. There is no net gain.

Furthermore, a relocated city hall threatens to bump Harvest Homecoming’s kiddie rides from its current location, posing a financial hardship for the city’s premier annual festival.

As for the exaggerated rhetoric of historic preservation, $7 million for one additional restored historic building won’t be diverting tour buses.

Numerous structures of historic significance lie within a five minute stroll of Reisz. No study has been conducted to determine whether one of them might be suitable as city hall. No other options even have been considered. If floated as a referendum, this relocation boondoggle probably would lose 70%-30%, or worse.

Ironically Morris, a proponent of unified city-county government (uni-gov), can’t see that Gahan’s interest in city hall relocation is politically motivated, having nothing to do with historic preservation or the Reisz building itself apart from the utility of prying away Barksdale’s council vote to restore Gahan’s control of an otherwise lapsed majority.

City hall’s relocation addresses Gahan’s pathological hatred of uni-gov. He’d secede from the county if allowed, and he’d relocate HQ to a suitably luxurious pole barn if one existed. Plainly, the aim is political preservation for Gahan and Democrats, and Reisz is just one move in a chess game to stave off power-sharing with the county.

Shouldn’t we wait until municipal elections in 2019 to discuss moving city hall?

Let your councilman know this mandate (if any) should come from the people, not the city’s ruling elites.

---

See also:

June 12, 2018: 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 reader writes: "God sent me there," although the rest isn't quite as clear.

Gradually over time discussions engendered by NAC blog posts have shifted to social media. These days not many comments are appended to original posts, but occasionally one appears -- and every now and then it's so thought-provoking that it simply must be repeated in this space.

Like this one. It's a comment made only yesterday to a blog post from August 18, 2018: "Rev. Bernice Hicks, founder of Christ Gospel Church, dies."

---

God sent me there after being on the road with skynyrd first tase of jesus i really got was with a man Randy cutlip came to our school i was in 7 grade he was in three dog knight band didn't listen much but learned how god set him free no church no preacher he whent to voodoo lady she told him to say theses words light 3 candles and a dead musian would fill his soul he lit the candles black cloud appears then a bright light comes into the room he blew out the candles and reached for the light of jesus thank god he did jesus and him saved my life. The next year i was in 8 grade. I came home there was randy cutlips van world wide bread casting company. All man school told him i was bad selling pot at school. So i went smoked a joint out side my room then went in pulled my dad into the kictchen dad what this guy doing here well son we are host family for him to stay here while he goes through the schools and churches kool i start to go my room he walks behind me he is staying in my room i turn around he i know the basses in that band lynyrd skynyrd really i said he said if you would like come this summer help set up tape record t shirt sales you can meet him ok i said he came and got me that summer we went church camp first as we get out of van some kids up to him brother Randy this girl is laying down with the boys putting spells on them then this boy comes up tells his story that somthing came over him and he wanted it gone they got more people to pray with him he falls to the ground starts sweating gallons of water comes out deamens start to appears in demond voices you cant make me leave he had 16 demons castesed out of him wow did i start to pray read my bible i was listening to every word brother Randy had to say. I wanted what he had a true relationship with christ not a church not preacher jesus and him a lone going to finish the book me and started to do my ministery is called beat the streets ministry i dont have big fancy church with coffee shop or day care i am in street with the sinners the drunks the lady of the knight the vetrans most important of all the children of all black white yellow brown we all have jesus blood pray for some one every day you can see the hurt the sadness on there faces by them lunch pray with with them it cost nothing. If a man or woman can see a problem decern that problem. We are obligated to become part of the solution. That is the price of freedom to me god bless i do give testimony in churches god bless.

---

I've no idea what to add. J, is that you?

My letter to the editor about Jeff Gahan's Money Machine: These are down-low times for local journalism and governance -- but I'm just a self-promotional blogger.

I throw back my head and emit raucous laughter.

Roger,

The News and Tribune received a letter to the editor from you regarding the New Albany mayor’s race.

In reviewing the letter, there are a couple of changes needed for it to be published. The parts of concern are highlighted and referenced below:

• The “point of fact” is inaccurate; it is opinion.
• The highlighted phrases and word indicate criminal wrongdoing and since no such criminal convictions exist, cannot run.
• We do not publish Blog promotions in taglines

We are happy to reconsider publication of your letter once those concerns have been addressed.

— Susan

Tellingly the local chain newspaper's editor has found it expedient in the past to take many similar liberties when lambasting Donald Trump, but I suppose that's somehow different.

Roger: Here is my second try. I changed some words and omitted a few others. I don't suppose the newspaper would be willing to divulge the dollar amount of ads purchased annually by taxpayers for Gahan's self-promotional "city of New Albany" ads? The city won't tell me. Perhaps the expenditure comes from a third party. Is that how it works?

Susan: Thank you addressing our concerns. This version is just fine and will run on Thursday’s Opinions page. I don’t have the information you are seeking, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to share client information anyway.

Sharing the amount of tax revenue being expended to advance Jeff Gahan's personality cult dozens of times yearly as part of the mayor-for-life's quest to brand a city with his own face?

Jeff Gahan has been branding the city in his own image, and using our money to do it, but we need collective thinking, not the shoddy veneer of a personality cult.

No can do, bucko. Revealing the money in this fashion apparently would violate the sanctity of journalism, which brings to mind the words of Abraham Lincoln to his hesitant general, George McClellan -- paraphrased to suit my own thoughts.

If the Jeffersonville News and Tribune does not want to use journalism, I would like to borrow it for a time, provided I could see how it could be made to do something.

Bill Hanson was cc-ed in the preceding discussion. He never uttered a peep. Perhaps he was busy in the home library listening to Tom May audio books.

Here's my letter. Don't forget to #FireGahan2019

---

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — For Thursday, Feb. 14

Mayor Gahan has too many outside backers

During the past eight years, Mayor Jeff Gahan has presided over a campaign finance operation of unprecedented scale and dimension. Let’s call it the Jeff Gahan Money Machine.

Presumably collecting campaign finance donations from the usual suspects is Gahan’s only real skill as a politician. The game is simple: self-interested parties give Gahan lots of money, and receive benefits so blatantly obvious that a six-year-old could figure it out.

Could someone run off and fetch a six-year-old to narrate the video?

Let's make one thing perfectly clear. While it’s true that everyone involved is responsible for perpetuating the cynical patronage system Gahan has so laboriously constructed, the upshot is that one person and one person alone might have chosen from the beginning to erect a higher bar and deter the possibility of corruption stemming from the practice of “paying to play.”

That's Jeff Gahan himself, but apparently transparency is too much for citizens to expect from a C-minus student, and so Gahan opted for the behind-the-scenes money. Tens of thousands of dollars have migrated to Jeff Gahan from out-of-town companies, lawyers, lobbyists, unions and PACs. Now there is a pervasive odor requiring a long overdue electoral purge.

Fortunately there’s a better way. Democratic mayoral candidate David White has stated publicly that he will not accept donations from individuals and corporate entities seeking favors to do business with the city. As such, White rejects personal benefit from the disbursement of public funds.

Rather, White seeks to restore genuine merit to the process of vending, consultation and contract seeking. With White we'll have ethical standards from the get-go — not a cesspool on the down low.

I encourage you to visit White’s website, to engage with him and to vote White in the primary. White won't have Gahan's $175,000 campaign finance war chest, much of it coming from outsiders, but he has something even better: straight talk, transparency and an honest desire to put the people of New Albany first, not Gahan's cliques and special interests.

White’s web site: www.davidwhiteformayor.com

— Roger A. Baylor, New Albany

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

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


A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

If someone ignored the "no soliciting" sign on your porch and clambered up to the door, breathlessly offering to sell you a gizmo with the promise that the mere fact of owning it will save you all kinds of money, there are many good questions you might ask.

Of course, you might also command the huckster to vacate your porch, or else. I generally do. But in order to determine whether the peddler's product is a sound investment, one specific question tops the list:

How much does it cost?

Mayor Jeff Gahan is a former veneer salesman with a well-honed, thoroughly greasy sales pitch, and he thinks you're too stupid to ask how much a new city hall is going to cost you -- in tax dollars.

The (Reisz) project will save millions of dollars over time, as the city has paid costs in its current location for over 57 years. It will also help the surrounding businesses see their private investment backed up by pubic investment.

Take a magnifying glass to the undisguised gloating amid yesterday's city hall press release, stating that the multi-million dollar Reisz renovation is a done deal and a fixed formality, and further opposition from the likes of YOU is plainly useless, and you'll find absolutely no mention of the price tag.

Please allow me to fill in this blank.

The Reisz cost commitment already has topped $10,000,000 in a city where perhaps a quarter of the residents live below the poverty line; where Gahan and his new unofficial deputy mayor and slavish devotee David Barksdale are eager to demolish half of the city's public housing units; and where city hall has yet to mention aloud minor details like the opioid epidemic, the accompanying rise in thievery and petty crime, homelessness, and the worsening plight of our city's working poor.

The sloganeering is so oppressive that a Trump rally seems like the knitter's circle coffee klatsch by comparison.

Government lives matter!

(so, let's literally quadruple the size of municipal government)

Buildings not people!

(because elite cliques need historic fetishes, too)

If you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford it!

(it might be the only truthful statement yet uttered by these purported Democrats)

Team Gahan and affiliates can do the math, all right, so long as most of it is concealed.

What eludes them is simple human empathy.

---

Last week the News and Tribune's most inconsistent editor got to work defending the imperatives of government buildings over those of residents.

He begins by inferring an economic ripple effect from a single government-occupied building, without bothering to try to interpret economic conditions and trends downtown.

MORRIS: Reisz rehab would give downtown a boost, by Chris Morris (Where Multiple Tom Mays Roam)

 ... But the area needs another boost. Some businesses have closed recently while others are struggling. Just think what could happen with a vibrant city hall in a refurbished Reisz building, in the heart of our downtown. With life put back into a building that has sat empty for years, others may decide to invest and open a business, or at the very least visit the downtown. The downtown needs this project.

Morris saves his weakest argument for last.

I am a fan of uni-gov — otherwise known as one government for New Albany and Floyd County, and being in favor of adding another government building to the tax rolls goes against that theory. Uni-gov would eliminate duplicated services, there wouldn’t be these power struggles or personality conflicts, and it would save taxpayers money. Too much government only gets in the way of people trying to live their lives ...

 ... So why would I support spending money to rehabilitate this building, guaranteeing two separate government buildings just blocks apart? Even with a uni-gov the City-County Building will be needed for office space and to allow the courts to expand. That building is also in need of some renovation, but that is for another day ...

... It’s a big move but one I think the city needs to take. There are no other options on the table for the building and this makes the most sense. The downtown needs a boost, and putting city hall inside the Reisz Furniture building may be exactly what is needed. It’s worth the gamble.

Worth the $10,000,000 (or more) gamble, like it's Monopoly money?

If there is a consistent theme to the prevailing Reisz apologetic, it echoes the immortal words of Basil Fawlty: "Don't mention the cost!"

Or: Don't mention the opportunity cost, because we'll be spending an extra $400,000 a year for one government building when the money might be combined with private sector investments to assist dozens of other deserving historic structures downtown and those small businesses and residences occupying them, as well as incentivizing infill construction to fill vacant lots.

Alas, we've long understood that Morris's veneration of "respectable" authority is such that he'll automatically take the side of anyone and anything he's loosely capable of identifying as a selfless community pillar.

Morris comes perilously close to openly acknowledging that this fact-free approach is contradictory as it pertains to uni-gov, and yet he churns out the logic sausage as predictably as Team Gahan and HWC Engineering render Jeff Speck's walkability into more of the same car-centrism.

I asked the newspaper for a similar word count in rebuttal. To my mild surprise, the offer was accepted, and I wrote the following. It was published yesterday; this is the "Director's Cut," leaving intact two passages I was asked by the editor to remove. You'll probably be able to guess which ones.

---

Last week the News and Tribune’s Chris Morris supported governmental intervention ostensibly aimed at “saving” the Reisz Furniture Warehouse by renovating it into a lavish new city hall.

I’d love to see Reisz put to use, just not like this. To understand why, let’s follow the money.

Dating to 1852, the Reisz building has been a flour mill, funeral home and shirt factory. Purchased by Schmitt Furniture in 1988, it served mostly as cheap storage.

At any point during three decades, Schmitt might have opted to “save” Reisz but didn’t, and so a central point of Mayor Jeff Gahan’s case for adaptive reuse is a suddenly urgent need to rectify the "dilapidated” building’s “neglect” (his words).

Apparently there are no penalties in New Albany for structure abuse.

Last August the Redevelopment Commission authorized funds for Gahan’s relocation project, at the time neither subject to an RFP (request for proposal), nor approved by city council. Detailed explanations were offered by Denton Floyd Real Estate Group, with whom Gahan is partnering, as though the deal already had been sealed.

Perhaps this occurred when former redevelopment tsar David Duggins accompanied Denton Floyd last fall for a limousine junket to Keeneland.

By May of 2018, the RFP formality was hurdled. $750,000 passed from Redevelopment to Denton Floyd, including the purchase price of $390,000, with the remainder to empty the building of junk.

Denton Floyd would complete the 23,000-square-foot buildout for city hall’s relocation (currently City Hall uses 6,500 sq. ft. at the City County Building), with a 15-year “rent to own” lease.

Yearly payments will be $570,000, or $8,500,000 over 15 years. By comparison, $200,000 during the same period in the City County Building totals $3,000,000. Another $500,000 is approved for office furnishings, surely a low estimate.

Ten months ago the city’s combined yearly cost at Reisz was estimated at $215,000. It’s more than tripled since then, with just shy of $10,000,000 committed to the project. The total cost of ownership inevitably will rise; in addition to inevitable price hikes, county officials insist the city remains bound to its current landlord. Lawsuits are likely.

20% of the city’s population lives below the poverty line, yet Gahan, who concurrently seeks to demolish half our public housing units, wants to spend an additional $370,000 - $400,000 yearly on city offices, citing the ripple effects of economic development that relocation will generate.

We should be asking whether these ripple effects are real or imagined.

The most persistent advocate of the Reisz project is David Barksdale, historic preservationist and city councilman, who thinks Reisz must be renovated at any cost, and presumably, since limitless costs are government’s responsibility, seeks largess from a bottomless well of cash.

Barksdale touts the project as “skin in the game,” a way of showing downtown stakeholders that City Hall stands with them.

After all, entrepreneurs and small independent business owners have invested $60 million or more into downtown during the past decade, while enjoying few of the subsidies available to suburban industrial park occupants.

Barksdale’s argument is flawed. Private investors spend their own money, but the money required for the municipality’s funding of a single speculative historic preservation project isn’t cash from Gahan’s or Barksdale’s pockets.

Rather, this “skin” belongs to the city’s taxpayers – and they haven’t been asked.

Naturally downtown stakeholders need functional “skin” in the game, this being shared, collective infrastructure, including streets, sewers, police and firefighters. These are grassroots needs, citywide.

City Hall spending almost $10 million on itself? That’s a top-down want.

Some compare a new city hall with the YMCA. It’s absurd. The YMCA brings people downtown who might not otherwise come. Moving city offices three whole blocks changes nothing. The same workers come to work, and they eat the same lunch. There is no net gain.

Furthermore, a relocated city hall threatens to bump Harvest Homecoming’s kiddie rides from its current location, posing a financial hardship for the city’s premier annual festival.

As for the exaggerated rhetoric of historic preservation, $7 million for one additional restored historic building won’t be diverting tour buses.

Numerous structures of historic significance lie within a five minute stroll of Reisz. No study has been conducted to determine whether one of them might be suitable as city hall. No other options even have been considered. If floated as a referendum, this relocation boondoggle probably would lose 70%-30%, or worse.

Ironically Morris, a proponent of unified city-county government (uni-gov), can’t see that Gahan’s interest in city hall relocation is politically motivated, having nothing to do with historic preservation or the Reisz building itself apart from the utility of prying away Barksdale’s council vote to restore Gahan’s control of an otherwise lapsed majority.

City hall’s relocation addresses Gahan’s pathological hatred of uni-gov. He’d secede from the county if allowed, and he’d relocate HQ to a suitably luxurious pole barn if one existed. Plainly, the aim is political preservation for Gahan and Democrats, and Reisz is just one move in a chess game to stave off power-sharing with the county.

Shouldn’t we wait until municipal elections in 2019 to discuss moving city hall?

Let your councilman know this mandate (if any) should come from the people, not the city’s ruling elites.

---

Recent columns:

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.

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

Letter to the editor: "I read your column on the Taco Walk, and the young lady's accompanying essay in full. I have sympathy for her."

Following is a letter to the editor of NA Confidential authored by Mike Ladd, onetime director of the Urban Enterprise Association.

Ladd knows all too well of which he writes. He was chewed up and spat out by New Albany's perpetually self-interested and wholly unprincipled Democratic Party patronage machine, and it wasn't pretty.

This preparatory link from May 8, 2017 is the place to begin exploring the background of Ladd's experience, with many more articles to be found searching by label at NAC: Mike Ladd.

Jeff Gahan has fired Bob Lane, and if you're wondering how Gahan treats his vanquished enemies ... remember Mike Ladd?

Earlier this evening, Bob Lane was fired as director of the New Albany Housing Authority. It is likely other long-term NAHA employees also will be purged.

It's important to remember that the stealth public housing putsch of 2017 was years in the making, and that it has been authored by Jeff Gahan. The board? Mere groveling sycophants. Gahan owns this, just as he owns his team's jihad and subsequent character assassination against former Urban Enterprise Association director Mike Ladd ... what Nick Cortolillo said in 2012 about Gahan's annexation of the UEA applies just as succinctly now, with the NAHA.

"The city of New Albany wanted unlimited access to the enterprise association’s revenue and Ladd was in the way."

Change the word "revenue" to "land," and "Ladd" to "Lane" -- and there it is.

Again.

Feeling good about yourselves, Democrats? Apparently Gahan assumes you'll continue to fall over yourselves in the scramble to kiss his ring.

He might be right, alas.

And who was Gahan's designated hit man when Ladd was taken down and City Hall grabbed the UEA for itself?

None other than David "Camorra Envy" Duggins, since installed following the NAHA putsch to orchestrate the mayor's public housing demolition and land grab.

They're just lovely people, aren't they?

Here's the letter.

---

I read your column on the Taco Walk, and the young lady's accompanying essay in full. I have sympathy for her.

I underwent the same treatment when we at the Urban Enterprise Association initially worked with the England administration to beautify downtown, and then I found myself battling false claims from Develop New Albany about their "contributions" to the project and how "actively involved" they were in planning, designing and paying for the work.

​At the same time, DNA initiated an active campaign against me personally and the UEA more broadly, claiming I had somehow convinced the UEA board to stop funding DNA and hire me instead. Fact is, I was already the UEA's employee. Truth be told, the UEA did not want to pay for DNA's employee, whom they had doubts about skills-wise. That is why they hired their own employee.

If DNA wanted their own employee they could have had it, IF THEY HAD DEVELOPED FUNDRAISING PROGRAMS that would have paid her salary. Instead, the DNA board wanted us to continue paying for their employee. 

The problem here is similar to the Taco Walk problem; they came to see the UEA money as theirs, just as they have laid claim to the Walk. What was that quote from the DNA board member: 'Once you bring something to us, it is ours'? Not exact, but the point remains. Once DNA sinks its claws into something, anything, it becomes theirs; even when it isn't. Everything they touch is corrupted.

Unfortunately, the England administration saw opportunity, and under the cover of wanting to promote "unity," they instead promoted discord.

For all, outward appearances -- maybe in spite of them -- it looks like the community remains the same underneath.

Mike Ladd

Great Unanswered Questions, Volume 1: How many Bicentennial books were sold, and who paid for the ones that didn't sell?

Throughout history, mankind has grappled with vexing existential questions.

Does God exist?
What's the meaning of life?
Why are we here?

Conversely, NA Confidential's questions are far more down to earth, even if answers to them tend to be just as infuriatingly elusive as the those queries pertaining to the wider cosmos.

From time to time, I'll be recalling some of these questions. Today, another look at New Albany's “official” (and Caesar-approved) Bicentennial book, “Historic New Albany, Indiana: By the River’s Edge.”

• How many of the books were sold?
• Was the Redevelopment Commission loan ever paid back?
• Why are the Bicentennial Commission financial records not in possession of the city?

Why should the answers to questions like these depend on the identity of the person asking them?

---

PART I:

January 7, 2014
On the Bicentennial's Crutchfield seat cushions: How many were sold? Was the loan paid back?

All we really want to know is how well those hired-gun Bicentennial books sold, how many of the 5,000 (!) remain to be sold, and whether Redevelopment's loan was paid back. We're fairly gripped with mercenary gala nostalgia just thinking about it.

---

PART II:

January 5, 2017
Bob Caesar and City Hall still won't divulge the bicentennial book details, but at least my letter to the newspaper was published, and I've got THAT going for me.

In 2013, New Albany city councilman Bob Caesar was chairman of New Albany’s Bicentennial Commission. 800-odd days ago, I asked Caesar for financial records detailing the committee’s activities.

I specifically sought details about the “official” Bicentennial book, “Historic New Albany, Indiana: By the River’s Edge.” How was it contracted, published and sold? What is the status of the Redevelopment Commission’s loan, without which the book wouldn’t have been published at all?

Supposedly 5,000 Bicentennial books were published at a cost of $144,000, or $28 per book; to this day, they’re routinely gifted by Mayor Jeff Gahan at ribbon cuttings and public ceremonies. If books remain unsold, how many are there, and where are they being stored? Who paid for them?

At various points, Caesar confirmed publicly that he would make available this information, and in a 2015 e-mail, he conceded the records were in his possession. I’ve been stonewalled ever since.

Earlier in 2016, when I reminded Caesar of his obligation to taxpayers, he told me to file an open records request with City Hall. I did, and was stalled by city attorney Shane Gibson for five months before this answer arrived: “The city does not possess the above referenced items.” Sadly, this isn’t the first time our mayor, his team and his political allies have seen to it that information like this is withheld.

If they’ll willing to go to these lengths to cover up dated Bicentennial financial records, what else is being hidden?

---

PART III:

March 30, 2017
ON THE AVENUES: Our great and noble leader is here to stay, so let's break out the țuică and make a joyful noise.

... Consider one of Gahan’s chief acolytes, self-important councilman Bob Caesar, who formerly served as nominal Ceaușescu of the Bicentennial Commission.

Most readers are aware of my two-year-long struggle to wrest public Bicentennial Commission financial records, first from Caesar and then the city itself, only to be dismissed with supreme condescension by both.

To repeat: The celebration of New Albany’s two-hundred-year birthday cost several hundred thousand dollars, and was funded in part with taxpayer funds. I’m a citizen of New Albany. Caesar refused to show me the records, and the city attorney Gibson said the city doesn’t have the records to show.

In short: Go peddle your papers, insufferable peasant.

This is amazing, and it should be unacceptable; absolute power corrupts absolutely, and any mayor who takes seriously his obligation to enforce the law shouldn’t allow it.

However, I’m happy to announce that the Green Mouse has obtained these Bicentennial records. Fascinating revelations lie within, and copies currently are in my possession, illustrating plainly that while Caesar and Gibson may not have lied outright, they certainly have acquiesced in a cover-up, and are guilty of consciously subverting the intent of state laws governing freedom of information and public access to records.

This should disturb all of us, and both should be cashiered. If they’ll resort to evasions and subterfuge to obscure Caesar’s handling of relatively paltry Bicentennial funds, just think what they’ll do to obscure the leakage from the many yearly millions going toward feel-good, beautification projects.

And yet … you’re bothered, but only a bit, and not enough to rock the boat, right?

The newspaper doesn’t ask these questions, does it?

In more candid moments, it may seem like smoke and mirrors, but just enough of that magic pixie dust is being spread around to encourage acceptance.

Isn’t it?

And you’re fine with it, aren’t you?

The fact is, if I were to spend 40 more hours of my own time, gratis, to sifting through the records the Politburo has denied exist, in order to show that lots of Bicentennial bucks were hemorrhaged this way and that, often straight to community pillars and/or political party stalwarts who nuzzled up to wet their beaks – as I'm completely confident I could – nothing at all would happen, would it?

They wouldn’t concede error or apologize, would they?

You wouldn’t expect it, would you?

And this is a slight problem, isn’t it?

I’m not ruling anything out, or in. I might take the time to sort through those records, or maybe use those precious hours to drink beer and watch documentaries about tin horn dictatorships the world has known.

But there isn’t much one person alone can do to prevent Jeff Gahan from redesigning New Albany in his own beige image, and as the sainted Bob Knight once implied, if tacky Disney totalitarianism is inevitable, then we might as well escalate plans for a new barroom in order to have somewhere to seek refuge from the sheer indignity of it.

That's exactly what I'm working to achieve, and when it finally comes to pass, I promise to place portraits of Ceaușescu and Gahan right where they belong, at the entrance to the toilets.

Or better yet, inside them.

My letter to the chain newspaper about atheism.

A nice, tight, 250-word summary of what occurred to me when I was told that Christian advocacy in a newspaper makes sense because Christians read it. Obviously, by this logic, there should be columns for every sort of personal quirk, from fishing to vegetarians to bondage fetishism.  

---

Subtle bigotry against atheists is still discrimination

Figures vary, but nine of ten Americans might believe in God. At least that’s what they say when asked. Many of these believers are Christian.

If another recent study is accurate, 69% of view a belief in God as necessary to be a genuine American.

This is highly disconcerting. Throughout history, atheists have been subject to criticism, persecution and at times overt eradication at the hands of believers of all faiths.

At the very least, atheists often experience a more subtle form of bigotry. For instance, a survey showed more than 30% of respondents preferring atheists be banned from the teaching profession.

Insecurity, intolerance and outright humbuggery always have been regrettable components of human society, and while majoritarian disapproval of atheism isn’t (yet) comparable to racism, sexism and other forms of institutionalized violence, it represents a form of discrimination characterized by ignorance, and one deserving of periodic counterpoint.

The News and Tribune sees fit to publish not one, but two Christian advocacy columns on a weekly basis. When I made my dismay known in a social media comment, I was told by a reporter that this makes perfect sense because many readers are Christians.

Interestingly, research published in the archive of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science suggests that more Americans (and newspaper readers) are atheists than may seem apparent, perhaps as many as 25 – 30%.

That’s because the stigma of atheism, as perpetuated by believers, causes many atheists to pretend they’re pious.

How very sad, indeed.

In letter to newspaper, downtown shop owner disagrees with a parking policy that doesn't exist.

The letter's author appeared in these pages in the spring of 2015, when her shop was blocked without warning by the farmers market.

Mulberry House Antiques and "an encroaching Farmers Market."

Then, she had a solid point about non-communication. Now, she does again, although I'm not sure she realizes it.

Certainly Betty knows that the two-hour parking signs to which she refers were replacements for previous signs that read precisely the same -- and which have not been enforced for six or seven years, since some time during the reign of King England III.

The current "improvements" aren't the cause of the problem, if any.

Rather, it's non-communication once again, and the inability or unwillingness of downtown stakeholders to study and address parking the future of parking.

When dysfunction is the issue, enhanced function is the best solution. It would require lots more communication than presently is occurring, which is the best reason to doubt it will happen.

But a boy can dream.

Timed street parking ill-advised

I have a shop in downtown New Albany. Today I had a customer ask me a very good question: "How does making all the streets two-way help businesses?"

I told her I guess since more people will be stuck in traffic jams on Spring Street they will decide they may as well stop and shop or go to a local restaurant. Oh, wait, they can't park for over two hours, according to new signs, which should be plenty long enough if you can grab some fast food while running through the streets looking in the shop windows.

Apparently the "Powers that be" want to make New Albany look like a big city, but most of our customers are from the big cities who want to enjoy the leisure of eating, shopping, walking and even parking without worrying about tickets or being towed.

This policy also shows a total lack of concern for those people who work in shops and restaurants that have no parking lots (which is most of the small businesses) and already have parking problems made worse by these "improvements."

— Betty Rinker, New Albany

Two-way paving: "During this time of highly-anticipated construction, please add signage that instructs the drivers on what to do in the meantime."

Hannegan Roseberry has an excellent letter in the Hansonator.

Among other unintended "interim" outcomes, she can see that a newly paved, unstriped Spring Street will result in yet another 5-10 mph bump in vehicular speeds (the first came after upper Spring Street was narrowed and the toll bridges opened).

In short, without bike lane markings to narrow Spring Street's ridiculously wide lanes, we'll be seeing drivers passing on the right and motorcyclists five abreast.

On a related note, since Dear Leader's sadly belated two-way street project began last week with paving on Spring Street, the social media airwaves have been choked with lamentations and venom.

In what might serve as this blog's mission statement (or its epitaph), it remains that you're entitled to your own opinion -- just not your own facts. Before taking a look at Hannegan's letter, let's indulge in a reprise.

The Return of the Two-Way Street: Why the double-yellow stripe is making a comeback in downtowns.

The Many Benefits of Making One-Way Streets Two-Way.

Why we fight: In 2014, Jeff Speck told us how street design impacts our city.

Traffic myths that won't die.

Watch the video of Dr. John Gilderbloom's two-way streets presentation last night.

Now, over to the neighbor.

Signage needed to help drivers in New Albany

As a resident of downtown New Albany and a Spring Street dweller, I am thrilled that the implementation of two-way streets has begun at long last. However, I do want to make a serious safety request. The traffic cones marking various work areas are causing serious and potentially dangerous traffic confusion, as there is no accompanying signage denoting what the cones mean. Meaning, the cones sort of look like lanes and cars appear to be making their own decisions as to what the cones mean ...

Viva Oligarchy! It was our own Indiana politicians who abdicated their duties to represent their constituents' interests, and brought us bridge tolls.

Mr. Epperson nails it in his opening paragraph of his letter to the editor, but then strays into Loony Tunes territory by tagging John Yarmouth as being responsible for tolls. There'll be an answer below, but first:

Bridge tolls a hardship for some (News and Tribune)

As a disabled senior citizen with cancer, I’m already burdened with many medical debts. I often must see my personal doctor in Louisville. The tolls for passage across the bridge may be negligible for young working people, but they are a hardship for the poor and elderly. No discounts are available for locals, yet an interstate driver can simply not pay if they even get a toll charge of $4.

What a waste of time and added expense 3rd District Kentucky congressman John Yarmuth caused, delaying this project and increasing its costs. This is the reason we now have to pay a toll. I urge all Southern Indiana citizens to talk to their friends and family in Louisville to retire this scoundrelous politician.

David Epperson

At the newspaper's Fb page, KLB replies by shining the spotlight precisely where it stands to illuminate the greatest number of parties responsible for tolling -- namely, right here in Indiana. It's a devastating indictment, don't you think?

Sadly, Mr. Epperson's plight of being subject to tolls despite needing to access medical services in Louisville is due less to John Yarmuth and far more to his own political representatives on the Indiana side abdicating their duties to represent their constituents' interests.

They're the ones who allowed the plan to balloon from one bridge to 2 with a Spaghetti Junction rebuild.

They're the ones who let one governor choose an east end route that crossed a (albeit questionably) historic property that required an expensive tunnel to cross.

They're the ones who let another governor get a pass for reneging on his promise that our bridges would be built with state funds and not tolls.

They're the ones who ignored the fact that their constituents who work in Louisville already pay a tax to Louisville to cover using their infrastructure.

They're the ones who allowed the tolling plan to be set up in such a way that Hoosiers would pay far more tolls even while the states split the revenue equally.

They're the ones that allowed a toll set up that lets out-of-state/out-of-region drivers get away without paying (because collection rates for tolling-by-mail are dismal where they're utilized in other states) thus handing the tolling burden even more so on Hoosiers.