Banned at 312 Bank Street? Or, "Courage: The Greatest of Virtues."

While I'm an unapologetic creature of the left, whenever my friend Ken thinks a column by Jonah Goldberg might interest me, he forwards the link.

Obviously I tend not to agree with every point made by the National Review's senior editor, and sometimes with none of them, but usually there are ample thought-provoking nuggets.

So it is with this installment, which includes ruminations about empathy and cowardice, and words and dictionaries ...

The truth is that I don’t object to new words or even new meanings being breathed into them. I know that will happen. What bothers me is that no one seems to appreciate that the new meanings destroy the old ones for all time, and sometimes those meanings are worth keeping.

... as well as a central observation about honesty.

The only real litmus test for me is whether you take a position because you think it will advance conservative ends and that you are making your argument for it in good faith — i.e., that you’re not lying. Telling the truth is a form of courage, arguably the first form, and courage is the greatest of virtues.

Goldberg quotes Kevin Williamson, who also is speaking about conservatism.

And we should be ashamed of ourselves if we come to accept this kind of dishonesty in the service of political expediency. If conservative ideas cannot prevail in the marketplace of ideas without lies, they do not deserve to prevail at all.

This applies on my side, too.

Here in New Albany, local Democrats fancy themselves as somehow "left," though seldom willing to explore the actual perimeter. As I await their decision to display some/any merchandise at the party's vending stall in the marketplace of ideas, it strikes me as ironic that Jeff Gillenwater made mention of all this just the other day.

I’ve lived in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana for more than a decade now. Throughout that entire tenure, the local Democratic Party has staunchly refused to take any position on any local issue. Save the occasional jab at a local or state Republican, they have focused almost entirely on federal issues. To the extent that any locals have raised concerns about that, they’ve been derided as unreasonable malcontents and radicals. Now that the party has a federal candidate who’s been asked about local issues, though, a lot of the very same people insist that strict jurisdictional guidelines must be followed; locals should only respond to local issues, federal responds only to federal, etc.. If these people get any more hyper-hypocritical about all this, we’re going to have to find a new way to measure such things just to try to keep up.

Fewer lies, more courage. Not exactly earthshaking, and not to mention probably impossible for so long as Adam "The Muzzler" Dickey's calling the party's neutered shots, but it would be pleasant for a change to read about ideas from Gahanites.

Do they have any?

The link: Courage: The Greatest of Virtues, by Jonah Goldberg (National Review)

Fourth Estate on the skids: News and Tribune's incomprehension about Jeff Gahan's hostile takeover of public housing remains mind boggling.

Let's take the News and Tribune's credulous editorial board gently by the hand and lead them as a group to the sweet water of genuine fact, hopeful they'll be able to drink deeply and perhaps as yet make some semblance of a contribution to what we're experiencing in New Albany as Year Seven of Dear Leader's social engineering experiment dawns.

I repeat:

For quite some time, former New Albany Housing Authority chief Bob Lane and his staff had a plan -- a genuine, real, written design -- to revamp public housing in New Albany on a 1-to-1 demolish/rebuild unit basis.

For Lane to achieve this plan, Mayor Jeff Gahan and certain of his vapid minions had to sign a few documents -- and they refused.

In fact, Gahan purposefully neglected to replace housing board members, and in most significant respects, the mayor did what he could whenever he could to thwart Lane's plans.

It's about a "C-minus" student's adoration of mythology, but more on this in a moment.

Gahan then seized control of NAHA, fired Lane, purged the board by replacing its members with reliably servile bootlickers and sycophants, and solved a huge 3rd-floor etiquette problem by shifting the completely unqualified and soon-to-be-divorced David Duggins a long mile away from HWC Engineering's branch squatter's office of municipal government.

This cherry-picked new public housing regime promptly promised to demolish half the existing units, to be replaced with vouchers, the utility of which is contradicted by every prevailing academic study -- but what does this mean to those among us who don't ever bother reading?

Except for the mythology, of course.

This abrupt putsch had the predictable effect of creating opposition; naturally, with no specific plan apart from the vague voucher bauble, and with the fix so very obviously in, thoughtful housing residents and community members viewed Gahan's actions in precisely the proper context: a hostile takeover of NAHA to facilitate social engineering according to the "vision" of a typical veneer salesman's lifelong prejudices.

So far, these verbal assurances to residents and the community have taken the form of veiled threats and strong-arm tactics, which are sure to become more prevalent when the new police sub-station is up and running; ironically, it isn't about the crime, it's about "boy, do you really need to be signing a petition when Pappy Gahan disapproves?"

Is the police chief capable of shame or embarrassment at this point?

Years of Gahan's conniving over Bud Light Limes at the Roadhouse, followed by ten months of pure bungling by people who can't even lie very well, and only on December 12 did the handpicked board of demolition coordinators bother to release an official statement of purported calming, the tone of which was immediately contradicted by an increasingly strident and intemperate Duggins, who denounced freedom of expression while pointing a paranoid finger at the emerging conspiracy against his selfless band of heroes.

It's an absolute and expanding mess of the anchor-weighted Gahan's own making. He is frantically scratching the most irresistible generational and mythological itch of all, this being his earnest and impeccably crackpot theory that honest DINOs can't ever get what they really deserve in this town until public housing is scourged and the unsightly poor dispersed.

Carbohydrates don't matter as much as plausible deniability, and Gahan's loading up on the latter, importing a red-faced bag man from Clark County to do the dirty work.

Gahan probably believes he's in the clear, but actually his ongoing public housing putsch reveals the fathomless depths of a moral and ethical void. Not only is the stain uncontained, it's spreading. The monetizing vandals at Team Gahan finally are getting worried, and their poise is fast eroding.

With the next coronation due in 2019, and so many beaks to keep wetted, things are about to become even dirtier.

Perhaps even a newspaper might be interested in such matters, although yesterday (December 31) the newspaper's editorial board saw fit to gloss over every bit of the preceding back story, somehow managing to cram a single uncomprehending reference to New Albany (overall) amid the predictably Clark-centic year's end pronouncements.

As a public service, using Google Map and a bottle of Amontillado, I've managed to confirm the editorial board's relative position in the local cosmos.

Those folks must be dehydrated. Too bad. We sure could use a newspaper right about now.

OUR OPINION: These news stories will carry over into the new year

Now it’s time to turn our attention to 2018. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict what some of the news narratives will be in 2018 …

• Public housing problems pile up

... New Albany has a plan, but can’t convince public housing residents — or even the public at large — that it’s acting in the best interests of all concerned by repairing what can be fixed and razing what can’t. Promises of housing vouchers for those who must move, and reassurances that no one will be left homeless, are being questioned due to limited residential housing. New Albany may have a good plan — at least this city is doing something — but until people’s concerns are assuaged, the powers that be will get little support.

— The News and Tribune editorial board is comprised of Publisher Bill Hanson, Editor Susan Duncan, Assistant Editor Chris Morris, Assistant Editor Jason Thomas and Digital Editor Elizabeth DePompei.

Reacting to We Are New Albany's candlelight vigil, Deaf Gahan is confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head.

Monday evening's candlelight vigil brought a group of around 50 concerned citizens to the steps of the City County Building.

Team Gahan's compromised cadres were absent, although their increasingly ill-tempered spluttering formed a veritable ghost soundtrack to the evening.

Let's begin with perhaps the single best summary of Jeff Gahan's public housing takeover (in bold).

Candlelight vigil held for residents of New Albany public housing fearful of demolition, by Sara Sidery (WDRB)

 ... The group "We Are New Albany" is against the city's plan to overhaul the New Albany Housing Authority, which involves the demolition of units.

"If we don't stand together as a community, our community is doing to fail, and we can't let that happen," one resident said.

Residents in attendance said they live in fear about where to go next.

"They're spraying perfume in our face, but really it ain't nothing but a dog turd," Alissa Baumgardner said.

The mic was dropped, but we move forward with Elizabeth Beilman's excellent newspaper account.

Critics of New Albany Housing Authority demolition plan to deliver petition to mayor, Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

We Are New Albany holds candlelight vigil Monday

NEW ALBANY — A group of New Albany Housing Authority residents and others who oppose a plan to demolish more than 500 units stood supported by a state representative and local candidates Monday night ...

... Represented at the vigil were the Democrat Socialists of America Louisville chapter, Democratic 9th Congressional District candidate Dan Canon, Democratic State House of Representatives District 72 candidate Chris FitzGerald and Democratic candidate for Louisville mayor Ryan Fenwick.

"This isn't a red issue or a blue issue, it's a human issue," State Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, said at the vigil. "Everyone deserves access to safe, decent, affordable housing, and everyone deserves assurance that that is going to be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that."

Canon observed, but did not speak. FitzGerald spoke, though he followed the safe Dickeyist script, carefully avoided any direct reference to Deaf Gahan's public housing putsch, sticking instead to his own experiences of housing insecurity as a child, and neutral homilies about empowerment.

Clere was direct and empathetic -- THIS NARRATIVE IS INTERRUPTED BY AN ANGUISHED SCREAM FROM DEAF GAHAN, lifting his head from a puddle of spilled Kool-Aid in the groggy realization of ooh, that smell -- the Febreze bottle is empty, and there aren't enough TIF scraps left to buy more.

"I would say to all those regional players [at the vigil], where have they been? Where has Ed Clere been?" Gahan said. "Because this isn't new. The city of New Albany has put a lot of effort and a lot of resources into providing affordable housing to people in need since the 30's, and that will continue."

Let's help our enfeebled and agoraphobic Dear Leader: Having defeated a series of weak, throwaway Democratic candidates, Clere has been in Indianapolis, serving as state representative, a position Deaf Gahan won't ever experience in his life ... especially after this weird, ongoing, small pond student council sociopath's jihad against New Albany most vulnerable residents.

And yet Deaf Gahan remains ensconced within his Disney-fried fantasy bunker, writing mash notes to heroes like John F. Kennedy and Nicolae Ceausescu, both of whom, if reincarnated, would flick the Deafster aside like an annoying insect, asking: who's that fanboy poseur over there?

"I think if any of those folks that showed up tonight took a look at what we're doing and how we're doing it, I think they would be pleased as well," Gahan said. He believes the city is "doing [its] part" to help low-income residents.

With a friend like Deaf Gahan, who needs enemies?

Asked for his perspective, interim demolition director David Duggins responded by text.

Meanwhile, Clere dispassionately dispensed facts.

Clere said in a phone interview before the vigil that he told the group he would sign the petition.

"I'm concerned about what's been going on and most of all, I'm concerned about the residents who are my constituents," he said. "I'm trying to express my support for them."

Clere said he isn't sure if a one-for-one replacement of demolished housing units is the right approach. But he is "not convinced" the current plan won't leave anyone homeless.

"[Vouchers] sound great, but many people, not just residents, but other members of the community as well are concerned about whether displaced housing authority residents would be able to find housing," he said. "It's a question of availability and affordability. There has to be both. And that's an open question at this point."

Finally, brief coverage at WAVE 3:

Concerned residents fight plan to demolish New Albany public housing, by Jobina Fortson (WAVE 3)

NEW ALBANY, IN (WAVE) - Concerned residents gathered for a candlelight vigil Monday night in New Albany, at the site where hundreds of families are worried they'll soon be without a home.

The group We Are New Albany collected more than 1,000 signatures for a petition they plan to deliver to Mayor Jeff Gahan Tuesday.

Can wagons be circled any more tightly? Deaf Gahan's public housing putsch is his own personal Vietnam, which means the helicopters should arrive in November, 2019.

The NewAlbanist: Tonight, we seek to speak truth to power, insisting that no public housing should be demolished unless and until viable alternatives are made available to public housing residents.

In advance of tonight's vigil (6:00 outside the City-County Building at 311 Hauss Square), the news cycle's pace is increasing.

Rep. Ed Clere on Gahan's public housing deceptions: "Paper promises are not enough. The residents deserve meaningful assurances and action to ensure they're future access to housing."

Gahan's reeking public housing putsch, his chosen procurators, their escalating foul tempers -- and snow, wonderful snow.

Randy's statement is brief, succinct and appreciated.

Public Housing and Speaking Truth to Power, by the Bookseller, at the NewAlbanist

 ... Tonight, we seek to speak truth to power, insisting that no public housing should be demolished unless and until viable alternatives are made available to public housing residents.

We, part of the organization We Are New Albany, are standing up peacefully for this proposition tonight in front of the City-County Building and presenting collected petitions representing this position.

The problem with speaking truth to power comes when power has no respect for truth, public sentiment, or open government. There is a non-zero chance that we will be confronted by the power tonight regardless of our Constitutional rights to peacably assemble and to petition for the redress of grievances. We demonstrate tonight on public property, without trespass, in exercise of those rights and will not impede the rights of any other. Nonetheless, we live in an America and a New Albany where the exercise of rights is not sacrosanct. We live in a city where vindictive retaliation is the norm and where there is little hesitation to deploy police powers to intimidate and do injury.

I'm struck by the fact that while writing separately, each of us sees the inevitability of being "confronted by power" tonight.

Examples of intimidation directed against public housing residents already are a matter of record, and as David "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job" Duggins sinks ever further into sofa-hugging paranoia and imagined enemy sightings, it can only get worse.

Meanwhile, it's going to be a wonderful litmus test tonight for our “Let’s Pretend We’re Democrats”®️ organization. The more light shining on Jeff Gahan’s hostile takeover of public housing in New Albany, the greater the stench — and it’s clinging to all the local Democrats who value a luxurious fealty to Dear Leader over any stray spasm approximating a principle.

It’s going to be very interesting, Adam Dickey ... but we can chat tonight, right?

Rep. Ed Clere on Gahan's public housing deceptions: "Paper promises are not enough. The residents deserve meaningful assurances and action to ensure they're future access to housing."

Kaboom.

The News and Tribune is AWOL (N & T coverage here) as Justin Sayers at the C-J breaks this important story detailing Rep. Ed Clere's public stance on the public housing putsch and his attendance at tonight's Hauss Square vigil.

Hilariously, all David "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job" Duggins can do is spout bilge about "politically motivated" protests and outside conspiracies.

As we noted yesterday, paranoia is on the rise within the ranks of Team Gahan -- and where are all the Democrats?

You've stepped into it, Jeffrey. That's why the smell keeps getting worse and worse. Expect to see a few of the mayor's operatives tonight, hovering around the periphery, taking notes. When the reprisals begin, and they will, just remember that for the City Hall sycophants wetting beaks and running envelopes, the end justifies the means.

'Paper promises are not enough': Lawmaker joins public housing fight in New Albany, by Justin Sayers (Louisville Courier Journal)

Housing advocates in New Albany said they remain unswayed by a city promise that no residents will go homeless because of a plan to overhaul public housing.

And a group of them, including state Rep. Ed Clere, plan to deliver a petition on Monday from more than 3,000 New Albany residents – including a quarter of the city's roughly's 2,000 public housing residents – that asks Mayor Jeff Gahan to not "tear down public housing without a plan to replace it."

The "Candlelight and Prayer Vigil," sponsored by newly created outreach group We Are New Albany, is to begin at 6 p.m. Monday outside the city-county building at 311 Hauss Square.

"Paper promises are not enough," said Clere, R-New Albany. "The residents deserve meaningful assurances and action to ensure they're future access to housing."

David Duggins, interim director of the New Albany Housing Authority, called the rally and petition "politically motivated" and the actions of people who "do not have the best interests of the residents in mind."

Gahan's reeking public housing putsch, his chosen procurators, their escalating foul tempers -- and snow, wonderful snow.

A previous conversation about snowblindness, joined in progress.

Wait -- did I forget to answer your question?

Sorry about that!

Here's a solid primer on the topic at hand; hope it helps.

Short-term health effects of cocaine:

• extreme happiness and energy
• mental alertness
• hypersensitivity to sight, sound, and touch
• irritability
• paranoia—extreme and unreasonable distrust of others

Some people find that cocaine helps them perform simple physical and mental tasks more quickly, although others experience the opposite effect. Large amounts of cocaine can lead to bizarre, unpredictable, and violent behavior.

What was that?

No, I hadn't heard about the random drug testing program being terminated without explanation, and I didn't know this meant he could have avoided the standard drug screen prior to taking the job.

It's probably just a coincidence, anyway. How long does it remain in the bloodstream, anyway? Looks like more research is merited.

Now, where were we?

Ah, yes -- it all comes back to me now.

---

Robo-NAHA board waves sheets of meaningless paper while Duggins foams at the mouth. No worries, because Gahan's finest functionaries are on it.

---

Below are photos of this inexplicably bizarre *'false' rumors* resolution (what about all those true rumors, anyway?) and the accompanying letter to New Albany Housing Authority residents, but first ... paranoia, big destroyer?

Have you noticed how irritable and sensitive Jeff Gahan's fawning flatterers at NAHA Occupation Force Supreme Command have gotten lately -- especially the Imperial Grand Poobah, who suddenly was shifted away from the redevelopment mess and appointed to wet the beaks of future developers as the luxury land grab approaches?

When Gahan's punch-drunk putsch was launched almost a year ago, there was euphoria and celebrations in the Stretch Humvee Limo (complete with paid eye candy) in route to the glories of Keeneland; now it's like Baghdad after Saddam Hussein was toppled, with rapidly spreading chaos, stunning incompetence, hyperactive attention to perceived slights, and lately these big, angry, roundhouse punches being thrown at phantom "enemies" no one else in the room can even see.

Seriously, who can keep a straight face while reading a borrowed-from-Hallmark line this lame: "At this festive time of year, we need to focus on our families."

Heavens. Lindsey Buckingham managed far better than this while assembling Tusk: "Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Why don’t you tell me who’s on the phone?"

Now that's an old-school snowstorm -- and Buckingham was a consummate pro, not a servile minion.

Meanwhile, in 2017 Gahan scratched his 50-something New Albanian white boy's itch and gleefully snatched the housing authority, but now the stench just won't go away -- and the sycophants and lickspittles assigned to monetize and colonize New Albany's most vulnerable population will be getting ever more testy.

Dude, why not take a break for the holidays? I mean, things like this aren't good for the nervous system, are they?

Robo-NAHA board waves sheets of meaningless paper while Duggins foams at the mouth. No worries, because Gahan's finest functionaries are on it.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my (bald) head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
-- David Duggins at last night's NAHA board meeting

Let's review.

For quite some time, former New Albany Housing Authority chief Bob Lane and his staff had a plan -- a genuine, real, written design -- to revamp public housing in New Albany on a 1-to-1 demolish/rebuild unit basis.

For Lane to achieve this plan, Mayor Jeff Gahan and certain of his vapid minions had to sign a few documents -- and they refused. In fact, Gahan purposefully neglected to replace housing board members, and in most significant respects, the mayor did what he could to thwart Lane's plans.

It's about a "C-minus" student's mythology, but more on this in a moment.

Gahan then seized control of NAHA, fired Lane, purged the board by replacing its members with reliably servile bootlickers and sycophants, and solved a huge 3rd-floor etiquette problem by shifting the completely unqualified David Duggins a long mile away from HWC Engineering's branch office of municipal government.

The new public housing regime promptly promised to demolish half the existing units, to be replaced with vouchers, the utility of which is contradicted by every prevailing academic study -- but what does this mean to those among us who don't ever bother reading?

Except for the mythology, of course.

This abrupt putsch had the predictable effect of creating opposition; naturally, with no specific plan apart from the vague voucher bauble, and with the fix so very obviously in, thoughtful housing residents and community members viewed Gahan's actions in precisely the proper context: a hostile takeover of NAHA to facilitate social engineering according to the "vision" of a typical veneer salesman's lifelong prejudices.

So far, these verbal assurances to residents and the community have taken the form of veiled threats and strong-arm tactics, which are sure to become more prevalent when the police sub-station (see below) is up and running; ironically, it isn't about the crime, it's about "boy, do you really need to be signing a petition when Pappy Gahan disapproves?"

Is the police chief capable of embarrassment at this point?

Years of Gahan's conniving over Bud Light Limes at the Roadhouse, followed by ten months of pure bungling by people who can't even lie very well, and only yesterday does the handpicked board of demolition coordinators bother to release an official statement of calming, the tone of which was immediately contradicted by an increasingly strident and intemperate Duggins, who denounced freedom of expression while pointing a paranoid finger at the emerging conspiracy against his selfless band of heroes.

It's an absolute and expanding mess of Gahan's own making. Six years into this reign of anchor-weighted error, Gahan is frantically scratching the most irresistible generational and mythological itch of all, this being his earnest and impeccably crackpot theory that honest DINOs can't ever get what they really deserve in this town until public housing is scourged and the unsightly poor dispersed.

Carbohydrates don't matter as much as plausible deniability, and Gahan's loading up on the latter, importing a red-faced bag man from Clark County to do the dirty work.

Gahan probably believes he's in the clear, but actually his ongoing public housing putsch reveals the fathomless depths of a moral and ethical void.

Not only is the stain uncontained, it's spreading. The monetizing vandals at Team Gahan finally are getting worried, and their poise is fast eroding. With the next coronation due in 2019, and so many beaks to keep wetted, things are about to become even dirtier.

So let's keep pushing, shall we?

New Albany housing board signs resolution stating none will be homeless after demolition, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

Resolution in response to "false information"

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany Housing Authority Board of Commissioners signed a resolution Monday stating no current residents living in public housing "will be made homeless" as the result of a plan to demolish hundreds of units.

The board unanimously approved the resolution during its regular meeting, putting into writing assurances that members have previously verbally made to the community.

"This is no different than what we've said, but clearly I think people don't believe or are listening to us ... this is in line with what the board believes, this is in line with regulations by [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development]," board president Irving Joshua said.

The resolution mentions "there has been false information circulated that has led NAHA residents to believe that they may be evicted or otherwise forced from their homes."

NAHA Interim Executive Director David Duggins called this information "extremely harmful," disseminated by "members of the community and former members of this board."

This information — that "people will be made homeless, that they will be evicted and that we are going to come in and tear down all these structures and put people on the streets" could not be "farther from the truth," Duggins said, adding some residents have asked if that is what will occur.

"We are here every day. The people who have gotten involved are not," he said, declining to name specific groups or individuals. "They do not have the residents' best interest in mind. We do, because we deal with it every day."

Click here to view a selection of previous NAC posts about the public housing putsch.

In which we catch Jeff Gahan in a flagrant, bald-faced lie about city streets, bridge tolls, and his city's non-readiness.

Yesterday we learned from the Courier-Journal's Lexy Gross (our newspaper was off at cooking school) that in spite of winks, nods, secret handshakes and Paddy Mac-brand decoder rings, Mayor Jeff Gahan persists in thinking that one-way traffic on Spring and Elm makes sense.

C-J report: Spiting Speck, Jeff Gahan still thinks that one-way traffic on Spring and Elm might be good for the city.

It's gotten so bad that even 3rd councilman Greg Phipps has noticed and is "very disturbed."

Once again, here's the damning passage, written by Gross:

... John Rosenbarger, New Albany public works projects supervisor, said Terra Haute, Ind., firm HWC Engineering is currently examining the city's options and how much it could cost to implement changes. Gahan said 80 percent of the project would be funded through the state and federal departments of transportation.

HWC has given the city two options: Spring Street and Elm Street would stay one-way from the interstate to Vincennes Street, or all of the downtown grid streets – from Oak to Main – would convert to two-way.

Gahan and Rosenbarger said they expect the analysis to take at least a few more months, then the city will release plans and costs for public discussion.

A few more months?

Let's take a closer look at what this means. Since Speck's study finally landed, NAC has been scanning those shards of information leaking out from City Hall's circled wagons.

Among other items stored under lock and key in Warren Nash's GI Joe foot locker, we've been looking for evidence of a timetable for two-way implementation, based not on what we seek as advocates, but on the city's publicly stated aim of linking street grid reform with impending bridge tolls, and ensuing traffic dislocations as drivers use New Albany as a cut-through to the untolled Sherman Minton Bridge.

Yes: Gahan's publicly stated aim.

The following passage appeared in Business First on January 7, 2015 -- 14 months before Gross's article yesterday.

The city of New Albany commissioned the (Speck) study after realizing that more motorists could be driven to cross the Sherman Minton Bridge after tolls are instituted as part of the Ohio River Bridges Project. New Albany is the first exit off the Sherman Minton, which will not be tolled.

"There is no question that the 'no-toll' situation is going to have an impact," New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan told Business First Tuesday after the YES! Fest kick-off event. "The city of New Albany is going to be ready."

Let's return to yesterday's C-J article.

Gahan said he doesn't expect the project to be complete until after the bridges start tolling.

Looks like Gahan lied.

Plain as day.

Maybe that's why they don't allow him to attend city council meetings.

---

RQAW, HWC Engineering, municipal cowardice, Jeff Speck, and reading the tea leaves through dry heaves.

Unelected Bored of Works gets started gutting Speck as mayor endorses PAC checks from afar.

Irv Stumler peddles humongous whoppers, feels no shame at all, insults entire city.

Proposed yard signs for the new "There's Only One Way to NA" anti-Speck group.

I heard this one yesterday morning. It seems that an employee of a downtown NA business was approached by a well-dressed elderly gentleman (read: Irv Stumler) and asked to sign a petition.

One-way streets or two-way streets?

He ticked the two-way side, and was told: But wait, you don't understand -- they're going to ban cars on our streets!

While knowing this wasn't true in the least, he quickly gauged his options and decided that the quickest way to convince Irv to go away and leave him alone was to change his vote to the other side.

That's right.

A candidate for city council is walking the streets, spreading the manure, and saying whatever he thinks is necessary to scare someone into signing his piece of paper. This somehow strikes him as leadership.

It strikes most of the rest of us a pretext for hospitalization and the administering of happy drugs.

Tonight is the final streets "forum" at the Pepin Mansion (1003 E. Main Debacle; 6:00 p.m.) If you have not attended one of the previous two meetings, I suggest you go. As for me, having attended the second presentation at the Carnegie, the Extol Magazine launch party sounds like a far better idea.

But let's go through this one last time.

In essence, even before any of us knew Speck, this blog has been beating the drum for his downtown street network proposals for a decade or more. If you don't know what we think by now, there's little that can be done for you, and there is no need of me repeating any of it tonight. Wake up, use coffee, and see a changing world all around you.

For residents bothering to read the streets document (Stumler evidently remains among those who have not), Speck's obviously done all the necessary engineering, and yet the heart of the matter lies not in these numbers and figures, but in the opportunity to harness our most basic infrastructure in support of the other forward-thinking measures we've already somehow achieved against the addled resistance of people just like Irv Stumler, rather than shackle and erode them with past imperatives that no longer have relevance in the here and now -- like one-way streets.

Yesterday I asked Mike Kopp whether the topic of Speck's two-way proposals arose during discussions with Flaherty & Collins Properties, the Indianapolis firm bidding to build apartments on the old Coyle Chevrolet property in downtown New Albany. Mike replied in the affirmative, and that representatives of the company said that far from discouraging them to proceed, the implementation of Speck's measures would be an enticement and a bonus to doing business in New Albany.

Whether or not one favors this particular living space project, the verdict is clear: The target demographic for downtown apartments, as for existing housing, small independent businesses, recreational opportunities, greatest future use and the Speck plan itself is one and the same. If you look around you and see 1965, Irv can tell you where to sign. If you see 2025, opt for Speck ... and watch as your property values increase.

In a broader sense, what we've spent all this time and money trying to achieve in New Albany stands to be boosted by Speck's ideas, rather than suppressed by traditional heavy industrial and trucking interests, which rely on harnessing infrastructure to extract its value for their enrichment, as opposed to compounding value for humans.

It doesn't mean they're bad people, merely that they're doing business in the wrong place, period. No one seems eager to say this aloud, so I will. They're the ones compelled to compromise, not the city's residents. Ironically, the net effect of universal Speck implementation only increases the possibility that property like Padgett's will become future redevelopment panaceas, with profits untold for the owners (i.e., Padgett) -- but as a place for people to live, not cranes to haul.

In closing, Jeff Gillenwater offers this observation.

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One of the more interesting aspects of the whole streets topic is the still pervasive yet inaccurate notion that our dominant car culture is somehow the result of free market principles. The exact opposite is actually true. 

A lot of streets in New Albany as well as all over the country were initially privately built specifically for multimodal use as it was understood as the best bang for the buck, that which would create the most opportunity and make connected properties the most valuable. Likewise, the street cars, commuter trains, and buses that used to populate and move New Albany and the broader metro area were all privately constructed and run. 

It was only after the government stepped in to dictate and heavily subsidize outward growth, road building, and fuel prices that we ended up with a strong car culture. In more recent years, we've been borrowing heavily from non-vehicle revenue streams to subsidize a majority of road building and maintenance precisely because neither the market nor auto-related government user fees come close to covering those costs. 

A relative dab finally going back toward alternative forms of transportation can hardly be construed as an attack on motor vehicles. It's funny to think about, given the source of recent political diatribes, but trucking just might be one of the most "socialist" industries in the city. 

Though the term is abused, I'd proffer that it really is common sense: If you're a resident, do you want one, comparatively expensive and dangerous way to get around or do you want several options, including much safer, cheaper ones? 

And, if you're a business owner, do you want just the one or multiple options for getting to and from your business, with some of those options leaving a lot more money in customer pockets for spending on something other than transportation? 

We have a chance, a choice, really, to allow our city and neighborhoods to move toward functioning like they were originally designed to function-- with greater mobility and an increase in the opportunities that come with such mobility.

I wrote a letter to the editor, because "It’s time for some street smarts."

Published yesterday.

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— It’s time for some street smarts

On Thursday, April 23, I was working from home, periodically jolted from the computer screen as Spring Street residents were treated to a preview of the street grid’s enduring malfunction, courtesy of the Main Street’s Deforestation Project. With brief traffic delays occurring on Main, heavy vehicles are self-diverting to nearby, unpoliced streets like ours.

In short, during one brief half-hour segment just before noon, I counted six dump trucks, six more garbage or related recycling vehicles, and five block-long semi-trailer rigs, all shaking the rafters as they thundered past my house on Spring Street.

If a single one of these vehicles was traveling anywhere close to the posted speed limit, I’d be very surprised.

Do school buses always drive this fast?

From the very start, the deforestation project’s chief architect, John Rosenbarger, as well as its same-engineering-firm-as-always design team (can’t we freshen the gene pool every decade or so?) have insisted that when completed, Main Street’s 13-foot wide lane widths would accommodate these destructive, pass-through monstrosities, most of which are not making stops in New Albany, but trying to find a shortcut from points east to points west.

From the very start, these protests have been both disingenuous and frankly insulting. The single point for pass-through drivers isn’t lane width; it is unobstructed speed of travel, and one-way Spring Street is designed to mimic an interstate highway in this regard.

Having become accustomed to self-diversion during periods like the present one, there is little chance these vehicles will return to Main Street when the project is finished, whether lane widths are 11 feet or 13 feet. Everyone involves knows this, but insists on saying otherwise. Spring Street residents are seeing more of these vehicles than ever before, feeling their homes shake, and vividly illustrating that not only are the “experts” incapable of effective street design — they also can’t lie very well.

All we can hope for is that Jeff Speck’s street study reveals the extent of their fabrications. In this town, you hope for the best … and plan for the worst.

— Roger A. Baylor, New Albany

On the song and dance routine of Dr. Tom Harris.

NABC appeals food permit citation; Health Department: Permit needed to sell alcohol during events, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

You know, all we're really looking for in this case is some measure of honesty on the part of the Health Department.

If it had been enforcing temporary food permits for alcoholic beverage vending in the manner implied by Dr. Harris, don't you think that after 11 years of NABC beer events, and four years of River City Winery wine events, that either myself or Gary Humphrey would recall even one instance of the assertion being true?

We cannot. Because it isn't true.

If Dr. Harris can exhibit a consistent pattern of Floyd County Health Department enforcement over a period of 22 years pertaining to temporary food permits at events where alcoholic beverages (only) are being poured under ATC statutory control ... if he can show this to be the case, then I'll drop all of it and pay under protest until legislative action can be initiated.

But he cannot. Because there is no precedent. Because we're getting Orwelled here -- Orwelled good and hard, and the Newspeak is getting just a bit tedious.

Note the circular logic. We ask for an explanation of how alcoholic beverages are included in the permit, and Dr. Harris answers: Because they're included in the permit.

Thanks for clearing that one up.

Dr. Harris is bobbing, weaving, and obfuscating, because he knows good and well that his department has never consistently enforced temporary food permits as necessary to pour draft beer.

Might there have been random instances? Perhaps, but notice that when pressed by Daniel Suddeath, Harris prattles about corn dogs and fair food.

If he'd like to concede a recent (read: last week) departmental change in policy broadening previous practices, I'm up for persuasion on that count, too. But if sterility was an issue in pouring beer, don't you think the inspector sent to cite us last Friday would have actually inspected a piece of equipment to see whether it was sterile?

Note also that Dr. Harris shies away from addressing the state's exclusion of beer and wine from food handling training procedures. If the Health Department can't or won't train pourers as to procedure, how can it cite them for not obeying?

Can't the Health Department just be honest and admit this is ad hoc amended practice?

ON THE AVENUES The long train of usurpations adds a caboose.

Mitt Romney: Not "big love," but "big lies," alongside sheep choosing to look the other way.

Cutting to the chase:

I recognize that Obama hatred is a real thing, but disliking the president so much that you would do harm to yourself by voting for someone who you admit you don’t trust seems to be taking things to extremes.

Mitt Romney's rapidly accumulating career lie tally strikes me as comparable to the upward arc of Barry Bonds's home runs. It is quite likely, although as yet not proven, that Bonds was juiced. We know that Romney refrains from alcohol, tobacco and caffeine (need we go any further?), but we don't know if that whole Mormon thing addresses steroid use. Surely testing is in order at this point, because the nose keeps growing.

Liberty to Lie, by Charles M. Blow (New York Times)

This election may go down in history as the moment when truth and lies lost their honor and stigma, respectively.

Mitt Romney has demonstrated an uncanny, unflinching willingness to say anything and everything to win this election. And that person, the unprincipled prince of untruths, is running roughly even with or slightly ahead of the president in the national polls.

What does this say about our country? What does it say about the value of virtue?

See also: The Big Lie. The Wikipedia article does a good job of tracing the "theory" of the big lie from Hitler's ravings in Mein Kampf through Goebbels's musings about England, although the conceptual dots are not connected to the present day. However, fascists being fascists ... well, you know.

"Ladies, Don't Fall for Moderate Mitt!"

Until Mitt Romney came along, I thought being religious precluded outright lying. And to think I wasted all those potentially devout years. Meanwhile, Romney has unveiled a new slogan: "Change We Can Deceive With."

I hear it is polling well with white male amnesiacs. That's bad enough, but let's hope women don't fall for it.

Ladies, Don't Fall for Moderate Mitt!, by Katha Pollitt (The Nation)

Dear Undecided Women Voters of America: It’s been fun watching you force the candidates to pay attention to the stuff men really don’t like to think about—equal pay and abortion and “legitimate rape” and all that. I love you, women! as Ann Romney likes to say. But we’re getting down to the wire now, and it’s time for you to make up your minds. Because face it, expecting to figure it out in the voting booth is not very considerate toward all the people who will have been waiting in line for hours to cast their ballot. Fortunately, despite Mitt Romney’s multiple, changing and contradictory statements, there are major differences between him and President Obama on all these issues.

Now, if you believe that the only issue that matters is the economy, and you believe that giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people and firing public sector workers is the way to fix it, you can stop reading right now.

Tolls: Kerry Stemler's not even planting petunias as atonement for his lies.

My esteemed colleagues at Save Louisville are annoyed that self-appointed regional development 1Si-Obergruppenführer Kerry Stemler is prone to spinning such tall tales.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly ... well, you know the rest.

It's part of his job description, and also a highly refined code. When One Southern Indiana's oligarch's read the terminally unelected Stemler's words above, they translate:

"This region's oligarchic development fetishists want this project, and the challenge is, they would like someone else to pay for it, and we know who'll get to do it: All the rest of the people who'll never profit from the oligarchic development orgy."

Here's another delightful exchange from the WHAS story, in which a forever drooling Stemler first refuses to provide the answer he knows is true (tolls are forever), then dodges the question with a prayer (may the Good Lord lower our bids), and finally gaily whistles while driving past the graveyard: Gee, it's be great if the final solution we're forcing on you can be reversed some day.

And once tolls are here, it's likely they will stay for a very, very long time.

How long?

"That's a question I can't give you the answer to," Stemler said. "It's a debt service."

Even after the bridges are paid for, the financial plan calls for tolls to still be collected for future bridge needs.

"Hopefully when we're done with this our bids will come in less than we anticipated," Stemler said.

Even so low that tolls could go away?

"I doubt it would go that low, but wouldn't that be a great day?" Stemler said

The “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of local politics.

When America’s free-falling President Shrub and his GOP bunker mates publicly refer to the Democratic party the “Democrat party,” does it mean that they’re syntax-challenged dolts, or is it being done intentionally as a not-so-subtle means of disparagement?

Perhaps both. Here’s a handy explanation, as offered by Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo (I sincerely thank my source, who is in enough “trouble” already):

Matt Yglesias has an interesting series of posts on his site about just what the big deal is when Republicans call the Democratic party the 'Democrat party'.

As it happens, a few months back I got an email from a TPM Reader who I think was a linguist. And he explained that there is something about the concatenation of syllables, the sound or structure of the phrase 'Democrat party' that actually sounds somehow inherently grating or awkward on the ears. When I got the note I think I was busy with something else. And I never really got a chance to work through and understand just what the guy was saying. I think I'll probably try to dig it up.

But that is a secondary point. The whole issue of 'Democrat' party -- other than as an example of Republican infantilism -- is an issue of respect or rather intentional and repeated expression of disrespect as a means of asserting dominance.

There's a certain conservative columnist named James X. who shall remain unnamed. At some point a few years back I had cause to exchange an email with him. And I called him 'Jim'. I don't think I gave it a second thought. I'm Josh or Joshua -- doesn't matter to me. But a short time later I got a half questioning, half barely repressed anger email from the guy asking whether I was intentionally disrespecting him by addressing him as 'Jim', the diminutive form of the name. Now, as I say, it was accidental. I apologized and explained that it was totally unintentional. And if he preferred to be called James I would certainly do so. As it happens, in the intervening years, my lack of respect for him has grown apace. But I'd still always call him James and not Jim. And this is the point. You address people the way they choose to be addressed. You address them by what they consider to be their name. In the ordinary course of life, when people do otherwise, we rightly recognize that they're trying to pick a fight or demean the person in question.

It is, as Matt points out, another illustration of the 'bitch-slap theory of politics'. You assert dominance over someone by mangling their name and continuing to do so even after the correct pronunciation or style is pointed out. It's right off the schoolyard and it's no surprise that it's a stock and trade of this president.

Locally, we refer to this same phenomenon – one so appropriately summarized by Marshall as “infantilism” -- as the “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of politics … and, for that matter, of all troglodyte blogging.

Accordingly, when Ms. Denhart refers to Mayor James Garner as “Jimmy” at her gasbag shrine, does it seem to you – as it does me – that her strategic choice of diminutive has far less to do with any personal deficiencies in social grace than it does with the patrician Republican peering over the fake academic’s shoulder, who artfully impels the trogosphere’s most pathetic puppet to dance?

NAC wanted to find out, so we dispatched our purely fictional roving correspondent Gordy Gant to Primrose Lane, where he succeeded in capturing a brief interview with prominent businesswoman and GOP stalwart Auntie V. We offer it here in the spirit of outrageously contrived satire, lest undiscerning readers mistakenly miss the joke and believe that the following account is somehow real.

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Gant:
You must be a special person to move to a new city and win the hearts and confidence of the populace with your first impression.

Auntie V:
I took on a project to create a quiet zone and kept trying to get the mayor to participate, as was a requirement by Norfolk Southern. He blew off five meetings, one which was even at HIS office. Norfolk Southern rep flew in from Roanoke for three of the meetings and it was getting embarrassing. I wrote a letter to a local senator and enrolled her assistance (one short pointed letter of support) and that ingratiated the railroad enough that they gave me $360,000 which enrolled INDOT (IN dept of Transp) to toss in the $180,000 balance I needed to upgrade our historic RR corridor.

SO, I went to the council meeting on Jan. 5th and explained the series of events which got me to the point that I called him a coward, a liar, a bully, wreckles, lacking in integrity, etc. and then I turned around and said, JIMMY, YOU WORK FOR ME And IF I was the boss I would fire you. For insubordination. His name is James and little did I know how upset he would be for calling him Jimmy, which I did on purpose to put him down, but didn’t realize I’d get such a rise out of him, which back fired on him worse, on top of making him look stupid. It’s much more involved than that, but that’s the nutshell explaination.

I had a video guy there to film the whole meeting. When I finished my speech, the entire room was cheering and clapping, as we are all fed up with him, and then I walked toward the door and one of the councilmen stood up and said, V, that is the most courageous thing I have ever seen anybody do. And the audience went crazy again applauded and all that stuff.

Gant:
I can't wait to hear the stories as to how that happened ... (muffled sounds … coughing ... we think that Gordy has fallen ill and will be taking a few days off ... )

Trognonymous local blogger called out for plagiarism responds by blaming the mayor.

Regular readers will recall that earlier last week, NAC took note of Ms. Denhart’s latest in a seemingly endless series of unattributed Internet plagiarisms, as regurgitated at her “Freedom to Screech” troglodyte rant blog: In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Now we’ve learned that the Volunteer State blogger from whom our laughably fictitious “Professor Erik” pilfered her material has taken public note of the theft, and references it here: Why Crib the Goofball Stuff?

Wow! A blogging member of higher education quoted this little site. Except, well, he didn't so much quote me, as use my words, without attribution, with every indication that he meant for a reader to think they were his own. In the quintessential sophomoric plagiarist's manner, he inserted two lines of his own, and "edited" text to a grammatically poorer result.

Alert! From one responsible blogger to another: Not only is our “Erik” not a professor, but “he’s” also not a “he,” and disingenuous gender confusion is only part of the recurring entertainment value proffered by this daily spectacle of an embittered, semi-literate, faux “academic” aspiring to trognonymous stardom. Please, don’t draw any conclusions about the state of Indiana’s educational system, which suffers from its own problems quite distinct from Erika's playground cluelessness.

Know that we fully comprehend the childish nature of her charade, and laugh at it – not with it.

In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Seems that the non-existent Professor Erika didn’t backdate her entry sufficiently far, as the original was published on January 22.

The preening professorial poseur is fond of demanding that rules be followed, and yet she’s entirely unable to consistently follow simple standards of honesty when it comes to identifying and attributing sources. Of course, this sort of serial misbehavior damages one’s credibility, but then again, credibility’s never been in ample supply at Dork and Mindy’s random character assassination generator.