'We Buy Cars": The face of luxury car sales in New Albany, in the form of an illegal yard sign in the verge.

A sign fairly oozing luxury.

Luxury car sales, my posterior -- even if the corner looks better.

Still, you gotta give the guy full credit for knowing the importance of meaningless buzz words. We're a city with 25% of its population below the poverty line, but City Hall is absolutely certain that if we keep repeating the word "luxury" over and over again, marketing alone will solve the problem. 

I remain fascinated: Why did the neighborhood association roll over so quickly for this guy?

Looks like ESNA and HyperCars are closerthanthis, which is why reality is so much more humorous than fiction.

It all started here:

That ugly word again: Plan Commission to consider "luxury" car sales at HyperCars on 13th and Spring.

Looks like ESNA and HyperCars are closerthanthis, which is why reality is so much more humorous than fiction.

What's a concerned citizen have to do to get back on the neighborhood association mailing list?

Thanks to the Green Mouse for forwarding what my eyes obviously aren't supposed to be viewing.

On Wednesday August 1 at 6:00 PM Hyper Cars Auto Detailing, located at 13th & Spring St, will hosting a special Open House for members of the ESNA. Please come and see the improvements made to the building and property. On August 7th the owner, Christian Betz, will be requesting a special exception at the BZA to sell a limited number of high-end cars at the location and he would like to have support from members of the neighborhood.

Hope to see you there.

Greg Roberts
ESNA President

It appears that ESNA's president-for-life has decided to hop into bed with HyperCars over "luxury" auto sales; given the bed already is occupied by Jeff Gahan, it may be time to upsize.

Have you noticed the default? Just about anyone who become aligned with city hall in any way suddenly feels the need to discourage dialogue and communication, keeping as much activity as possible below the surface.

That ugly word again: Plan Commission to consider "luxury" car sales at HyperCars on 13th and Spring.

When I finally was allowed to attend an ESNA meeting recently and the question of used car sales at HyperCars was raised, the association's Greg Roberts said there'd be none.

Yesterday I asked Greg for a clarification, and he offered this revision: it seems the neighborhood elders have been monitoring the situation, and they knew all along that HyperCars someday would seek to park no more than seven cars at a time on the lot for sale, but no one thought the business actually would pursue an exception this quickly, and learned of it only when the Plan Commission mailing arrived.

That's poor communication on several levels.

Whereas I'd previously declined to get involved with this situation, I can feel the dander's upward creep.

Ironically, after the last ESNA meeting Roberts told me it would be okay for my address to once again be added to the mailing list, from which it had been removed after I foolishly assumed a few YEARS back that I could "reply to all" in an effort to facilitate communicating with neighbors -- but NO; this apparently is a violation of East Gregland protocol.

Add another column to the Chronicles of New Gahania: I'm being excluded from a neighborhood association that barely exists because dialogue is a threat to "proper" communication.

Shrug. If you're a 3rd district voter, hasn't eight years of this been enough?

DNA's next merchant meeting is at Roadrunner Kitchen (145 E. Main Street) at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 17. See, that wasn't so difficult, was it?

Then there's this.

It's like pulling teeth, but we all must practice dentistry on occasion.

Regular readers will recall NA Confidential's frequent and fruitless attempts to engage Develop New Albany in dialogue, something our taxpayer-supported, captive arm of City Hall event planning apparently has been told to refrain from so much as even attempting.

Heck, they won't even acknowledge my e-mails.

Apart from DNA's ongoing Taco Walk mirror problem, the remedy for which surely involves a commitment to Cultural Appropriators Anonymous, I've asked one innocent question at least a half-dozen times, maybe more (paraphrased):

"We used to receive notifications about the monthly merchant meetings on third Tuesdays of the month at 8:30 a.m., as well as follow-up e-mails with the previous meeting's minutes, but somehow (inexplicably) these have stopped arriving, so could we please be placed back on the mailing list and kept informed about future meetings?"

After all, if you look back into the blog archives, I've always done my little bit to encourage attendance at these meetings, and to participate constructively.

And, before anyone asks, be aware that as recently as February 27, 2018, I remained the part-owner of a downtown business (NABC) and at this precise moment, I still am a business owner: Potable Curmudgeon Inc., parent company of pro bono and profit-free NAC, at 1117 E Spring Street.

DNA receives a level of annual support from the city; I don't know how much, but when I served on the DNA board, it was $5,000. The money comes from tax revenues by one route or another, and as a taxpayer and citizen, I'm just as entitled as anyone else to (a) acknowledgement, and (b) inclusion on mailing lists.

I strongly suspect the directive to muzzle me emanates from DNA's governing board, not a lowly staff person, and as such, every time I'm treated as non-person, the raging pettiness merely confirms my point about improper non-transparency, which DNA's board seeks to deny.

The Green Mouse has done some brief digging, and informants are plentiful. Thanks, guys. The next merchant meeting is on April 17, at 8:30 a.m., at the new Roadrunner Kitchen (145 E. Main).

And now, Morrissey with the coda.