Top blog comment of the month: A COA for the NSP infill? It'd be MIA.

You know, before he changed the seal and all. 

Our post this morning ...

Life is like a street piano. What the Bored of Works gets out of it depends on how they "nay" it.

 drew an insightful comment:

Did the city ask the Preservation Commission for a "Certificate of Appropriateness" before they demolished the tavern at 922 Culbertson?

More on what I learned this week: Félix, Susan, and the Engahan times we live in.

Remember the law about signage outside polling places?

It was enacted to move the political operatives away from the doorway, where they used to stand with stacked crates of Kessler, handing out half-pints of whiskey so that someday, we might have a Main Street Deforestation Project.

Those handovers of booze in broad daylight were masterpieces of subtlety and discretion compared with what happened in New Albany during the third England administration, when Hizzoner awarded Susan Kaempfer $108,000 at a rate of $50 hourly to serve as project manager of the Midtown neighborhood stabilization project.

From the moment Kaempfer endorsed that first check, presumably with the mayor’s wife beaming while handing her the pencil, her credibility vanished faster than the plume from an e-cigarette.

It was the veritable capstone of England Doug’s career in cynical payout largesse, and a complete, all-encompassing civic embarrassment rivaling that of French president Félix François Faure.

Take it away, Wikipedia:

Faure died suddenly from apoplexy in the Élysée Palace on 16 February 1899, at a critical juncture while engaged in sexual activities in his office with 30-year-old Marguerite Steinheil. It has been widely reported that Felix Faure had his fatal seizure while Steinheil was fellating him, but the exact nature of their sexual intercourse is in fact unknown and such reports may have stemmed from various jeux de mots (puns) made up afterward by his political opponents. One such pun was to nickname Mme Steinheil "la pompe funèbre" (wordplay in French: "pompes funèbres" means "death care business" and "pompe funèbre" could be translated, literally, as "funeral blow-job"). George Clemenceau's epitaph of Faure, in the same trend, was "Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée" (another wordplay in French; could mean both "he wished to be Caesar, but ended up as Pompey", or "he wished to be Caesar and ended up being blown": the verb "pomper" in French is also slang for performing oral sex on a man); Clemenceau, who was also editor of the newspaper L'Aurore, wrote that "upon entering the void, he [Faure] must have felt at home".

For the past two weeks, we’ve witnessed Kaempfer on the comeback trail, actively and politically soliciting cash for “her” farmers market,openly on behalf of "her" Develop New Albany, in spite of DNA's largely theoretical non-profit-driven stance against such crass, transparently manipulative activities.

In effect, Susan Kaempfer has orchestrated a hostage-taking, by abducting a straw man of her own creation, stirring up panic among the non-resident vendors, then slicing the straw man's throat before a spineless, pliant council while City Hall looked skyward in search of missing Malaysian airplanes.

There have been so many lies told this past week that if our civic symbol of Pinocchio (an intellectually impoverished river town's equivalent of the Golem) might be positioned facing east, toward Bamberg, those among us seeking immediate exile might promptly arrive at the Schlenkerla tavern without once wetting our feet.

Concurrently, before I begin shopping for plane tickets, permit me to hereby propose that we rename the newly embellished farmers market the Félix François Faure Memorial Cucumber Stand, because in New Albany, the city itself is Pompey, with the cash spewing inexorably in one direction.

JAYsus: Why -- why, why -- on earth must we continue paying her, again and again?

REWIND: Douglas England will be remembered primarily for fixes like this one. It's why he had to go.

(And why he needs to stay away. Originally published on November 19, 2011)

Nothing much needs to be said about this revelation apart from what we already knew, because you can only vomit so much before the dry heaves begin in earnest. Thanks to the newspaper for publishing the information, albeit belatedly; the margin of defeat might have been even worse, but we'll take what we can get -- just like she did.

THE HOUSE IS IN ORDER: Administration defends DNA president’s NSP contract; State says New Albany meeting requirements for $6.7 million project, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune; beware of pop-ups)

Mayor Doug England’s administration was within its right to hire Develop New Albany President Susan Kaempfer at a rate of $50 per hour to serve as program manager of the Midtown neighborhood housing project, state officials have confirmed.

Kaempfer — who was vice president of the nonprofit Develop New Albany when she was awarded the contract — was paid $108,401 from June 28, 2010, to Aug. 18, 2011, according to records provided by the administration.

Amid the stench of hypocrisy, fiscal turnstiles begin spinning as Redevelopment awards sports complex bid.

Most of us have joined the chorus of cheers from the Hoosier Panel neighborhood with respect to the recreation complex. It's the $9 million aquatics center project at the former Camille Wright facility that strains credulity.

New Albany panel awards $5.08 million bid for sports complex; Project is at former Hoosier Panel site, by Grace Schneider (C-J)

Appropriately, my favorite passage from Grace's article is this:

Neighbors had complained for years that the property is an eyesore and a drag on property values. Most have cheered the city’s plan to clear the site and create park and green space where factories and modest homes share streets around the rail tracks.

Not coincidentally, New Albany's 1960s-era one-way arterial streets (Market, Spring, Elm) also are a drag on property values for those living and investing in homes on or near them. One-way streets also tend to contradict the aims of money spent on neighborhood stabilization and revitalization.

Thus, we see the city spending money to improve property values in the Hoosier Panel neighborhood, and also on Main Street with its impending corridor improvement project, which will have the effect of diverting even more traffic to one-way streets already serving as colossal impediments to property values and quality of life.

And yet, when midtown residents voice precisely the same concerns to the city as those of these other areas, the only sound being heard in response is the muffled shuffle of foot-dragging.

Feet can be good, as when they're deployed toward enhanced walkability. One-way streets compromise walkability. They compromise safety, property values and QOL. It's a no-brainer, Scott, David ... Jeff.

With a new year approaching, isn't it time the city got its act together?

Wouldn't some semblance of a plan be of assistance?

I'll be asking these questions well into 2015, won't I?

2011 Highlights & Lowlights: Paybacks? They're slaps in the face, too.

Few developments in 2011 better symbolized the final England administration's descent into crass and self-serving nepotism than its predilection for seeding committees and boards with as many of the same operatives as possible, and then producing novel ways of reimbursing them with someone else's money -- in this case, cash tithed by taxpayers nationwide for the purpose of stabilizing a neighborhood. Featherbedding simply doesn't do it justice: Douglas England will be remembered primarily for fixes like this one. It's why he had to go.

In this November 19 posting, NAC linked to an article at OSIN (THE HOUSE IS IN ORDER: Administration defends DNA president’s NSP contract), itself a worthy expose withheld from publication until after the November election for reasons known only to Alabama pensioners and their media mavens. Reporter Daniel Suddeath provided this helpful tidbit:

(Susan Kaempfer's) contract was to expire June 20, but was extended six additional months through the end of the year. The amended contract states her expenses are not to exceed $50,000 for the remainder of the year.

NAC reader w&la then responded in a comment that many readers may have missed at the time.

Re: the $ 50,000 "remainder" salary - according to Census Bureau statistics:

"The median income for a household in the city was $34,923, and the median income for a family was $41,993.

Males had a median income of $31,778 versus $24,002 for females.

The per capita income for the city was $18,365.

About 11.4% of families and 13.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.6% of those under age 18 and 9.1% of those age 65 or over."

In short, Mayor England's proto-Machiavellian "I alone pick the winners" approach to governance in the barest of breaches has enabled a mechanism encouraging too few cooks to spoil the broth. When the clock strikes 2012, Jeff Gahan will be in the unenviable of performing the cleanup.

Anyone got a bucket?

CM Zurschmiede's holiday gift: Pretzel logic, or can of worms?

Flushing time draws ever nearer, but two city council meetings remain on the 2011 calendar, with the first one coming tonight.

In today’s preview, the News and Tribune ‘Bama Pop-Up Machine’s reporter Daniel Suddeath considers one item that will not be on tonight’s agenda: Last month’s tabled funding request from New Albany First, the city's first ever grassroots advocacy group for independent small business.

I find it slightly odd that CM John Gonder’s explanation herein, to the effect that such future funding requests should be for specific economic development projects, merely repeats what was said aloud during council discussions when the idea was first minted.

But far richer is CM Kevin Zurschmiede’s “slap in the face” line.

In a muddled piece of sophistry, Zurschmiede seems to be saying that existing organizations like Develop New Albany (a) get pride of place at the table, but (b) have been underfunded by the council in the past, and (c) would be insulted by monies devoted to any new organization which (d) seeks to accomplish something the existing ones have not attempted.

Any disinterested observer might respond by asking a few basic questions of Zurschmiede:

Why is an organization disqualified from requesting money just because it is new?

Isn't it possible that "new" trends, ideas and programs sometimes come along, and are worthy -- like when telephones replaced smoke signals?

Exactly what have these existing organizations done to help businesses?

If existing organizations actually have helped businesses, why has the council underfunded them?

If the $75,000 set aside by the council must be earmarked for existing organizations, why haven’t any of them yet followed the stated guidelines and come to ask for the money?

If they have not asked for money, aren’t they under-performing when it comes to helping businesses?

Of course, there’s the much-debated objection that NA First’s tabled request for monies included salary for a director. I understand why this is an issue. At the same time, DNA’s current president is being amply remunerated, albeit indirectly, with Federal cash via the mayor’s fix with the Midtown neighborhood stabilization program.

Perhaps the true moral of the story is that NA First shouldn’t have asked the city council for funding. Rather, it should have approached Doug England directly, and had him arrange a meeting with Barack Obama, who'd gladly write that $108K check.

New Albany First funding to remain tabled; Zurschmiede: $80,000 request ‘slap in the face’ to other organizations

Councilman Kevin Zurschmiede said his personal feelings about New Albany First are separate from what he believes the role of the public sector is when it comes to funding the organization.

“I stand behind what they’re trying to do, however, I don’t think the council can provide funding for a new organization like that,” he said.

Beyond being a member of the organization, Zurschmiede said the council has scarcely provided funding for Develop New Albany, which was formed in 1990.

Appropriating $80,000 for a new group like New Albany First would come as a “slap in the face” to organizations that have been established and helping businesses for several years in the city, he continued.

Douglas England will be remembered primarily for fixes like this one. It's why he had to go.

Nothing much needs to be said about this revelation apart from what we already knew, because you can only vomit so much before the dry heaves begin in earnest. Thanks to the newspaper for publishing the information, albeit belatedly; the margin of defeat might have been even worse, but we'll take what we can get -- just like she did.

THE HOUSE IS IN ORDER: Administration defends DNA president’s NSP contract; State says New Albany meeting requirements for $6.7 million project, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune; beware of pop-ups)

Mayor Doug England’s administration was within its right to hire Develop New Albany President Susan Kaempfer at a rate of $50 per hour to serve as program manager of the Midtown neighborhood housing project, state officials have confirmed.

Kaempfer — who was vice president of the nonprofit Develop New Albany when she was awarded the contract — was paid $108,401 from June 28, 2010, to Aug. 18, 2011, according to records provided by the administration.

Steve Price nowhere in sight as work begins to improve the neighborhoood he willfully neglects.

But Price was seen later in the day, hard at work leasing furniture to his grateful rental property tenants. Meanwhile, the sort of genuine accomplishment that has eluded Price's "negatory" legislative tenure was being celebrated at Ritter Park.

HOME IMPROVEMENT: Rehabilitation work begins in New Albany's Midtown neighborhood, by the Tribune's Daniel Suddeath.

Mayor Doug England said the Midtown neighborhood and especially the SEJ area have been hit hard by foreclosures propelled by the recession.

Revitalizing the neighborhood and getting more homeowners there is critical to the success of New Albany, he said.

“This is the closest neighborhood to our downtown — the heart of our city,” England said.

He added that no matter how people felt about federal stimulus spending, the SEJ grant is a “fine example” of how the money can be used to boost New Albany’s economy by improving housing and creating jobs.

Rubbing the wrong way: It's not dark in here for lack of lamps.

There was a press conference yesterday to formally announce the $6.7 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant awarded to New Albany for work in the S. Ellen Jones neighborhood. Despite some coordination issues (with the presser, not the program), it’s encouraging when group rubbing leads to an actual genie appearance.

We know the drill: The City will purchase and renovate approximately forty homes, build up to 10 new units, and then sell them at affordable prices. Even with administrative costs and price incentives, a substantial portion of the original financial allotment will be returned to the City at the time of sale to be reinvested for the same purpose in accordance with federal guidelines, allowing the process to be repeated on an incrementally smaller scale.

With the hiring of local firms and the purchasing of goods from local suppliers, the money will cycle through our local economy many times over. Property values will rise, jobs will be sustained and created, the neighborhood will, in fact, become more stable, and the revenue generated by those activities will aid in curtailing budget shortfalls in various levels of government.

The significance of the dollar amount was rightly touted in the Tribune as being “worth about half of New Albany’s annual city budget.” Its potentially transformative magic has been extensively discussed and sufficiently aahed. Like I said, it’s encouraging.

Here’s what’s not so encouraging: With the proper initiative, we could have done it or something similar on our own. The City Council sat on $5 million in reserves this year. With our additional annual influx of EDIT funds in 2010, our stash will be roughly equivalent to the NSP grant amount. The genie’s lamp has been in our hands the whole time. What’s missing is the foresight and political will to use it, largely from a City Council who typically blames the mayor for their lack of engagement anyway.

If we take in approximately $2 million in EDIT funds annually and $6.7 million is enough to renovate, build, and sell 50 homes to single family owners, we could replicate an NSP-style model, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, every three to four years with purely local dollars. Does anyone think 50 totally new or correctly renewed homes in their neighborhood might make a difference?

What happens when the funds returned to the program via sales provide financing to complete another conservatively estimated 15 or 20 homes in the same neighborhood? What if the neighborhoods were approached in a row, with the second right next to the first and so on, extending the pattern? Does 130 total home renovations within a mile or so sound appealing?

What would the revenue capture do for our tax base? What would a more stable neighborhood do for our school achievement scores? Our crime rates? Might the private market respond with increased confidence and investment, especially if they knew more improvements were coming?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that every last slice of EDIT funding be given over to home renovation. What I am suggesting is the scale and multiplicity of return that would be possible if the council took a sincere interest in revitalization and fiscal sustainability, actually using their time to learn about and seek investment opportunities and best practices that would benefit the city over the long term instead of engaging in the often purposeful ignorance to which we’ve become accustomed.

Even if a partial but sufficient EDIT amount were pledged each year to deal with the most egregious and/or visible properties in a systematic way, remarkable improvements could be made in conditions well beyond the properties themselves.

It doesn’t take magic. It takes intellectual honesty and earnestness. And that no one has granted them.

Neighborhood Stabilization Program: Stories from other cities.

Thanks to NeighborWorks America for sharing these video NSP stories from partner organizations around the country.


Elkhart & Goshen, IN



St. Louis, MO



Chelsea, MA

Breaking: New Albany awarded 6.7 million in neighborhood stabilization funds.

Word from Indy is that New Albany's application for funds via the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 (NSP2) has been approved for $6.7 million.

From the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority's web site:

NSP2 will provide grants to states, certain local communities and nonprofits to purchase and redevelop foreclosed or abandoned homes or other vacant properties, for resale or rental to low, moderate, and middle income households, in order to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the declining values of neighboring homes. The funding is provided under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) for additional activities under Division B, Title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA).

More as details become available...

Update: Per Daniel Suddeath of the Tribune, the award actually comes from a shuffling of NSP1 funds rather than NSP2.

New neighborhood association chartered in New Albany.

With a population of 6 – two humans and four cats – the 1117 East Spring Street Neighborhood Association (1117 NA, for short), seeks to capitalize on the city's enduring, unceasing factionalist disunity by actively competing against other, like-minded groups for scarce and diminishing resources at the precise time when co-operation is most needed.

“We believe that circling our wagon is the best approach to deal with the transitional status of the areas outside our own tiny patch of turf,” says 1117 NA founder R. A. Baylor.

“This way, it’s all for number one, and none for all.”

In like spirit, the formation of the 1117 NA is being lauded by those parasitical elements that readily thrive in New Albany’s historic downtown residential areas in the absence of principled unity, including the Slumlord Benevolent Society (SBS), the Meth Cooker’s Alliance (MCA), the Diversity Ends at the Tip of My Porch’s Nose (DETMPN), and the Committee to Re-elect Steve Price (JETHRO).

Its perimeter duly staked, 1117 NA intends an immediate petition to the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA) Board of Directors for “purely an afterthought” funding from the NSP Community Neighborhood Revitalization Fund.

According to Baylor, 1117 NA’s bid for afterthought funding stands in stark contrast with applications submitted by other, larger neighborhood associations in the area.

“Seeking the betterment of whole city blocks is effete, outmoded, pie in the sky blather from the same liberal minds that brought us socialistic health care,” he says. “It only makes the slumlords mad, while getting the rest of us dirty. However, 1117 NA’s bold, innovative proposal keeps it small and sustainable. If approved, these neighborhood stabilization monies will be used as soon as possible to enhance the quality of life where it matters most: Right here at 1117 E. Spring.”

Items on 1117 NA’s neighborhood revitalization checklist include a big-ass brick wall to keep everyone else out, a new hot tub on the back patio, a humidor and cigar lounge in the unfinished basement, more refrigeration and beer tapping capability, and guaranteed lifetime supplies of both cat food and kitty litter.

Baylor said that when it comes to existing neighborhood associations, there are no hard feelings.

“There’s no ‘team’ in ‘I’, and there’s no ‘communal’ in ‘lone wolf’, but what the hell -- they’ll figure it out eventually. It just got to the point where too many hoity-toity bloggers were telling me how to live my life, and my wife's and cats’ lives, too, and if I believed in God, I’d say ‘by God’, that’s just un-American. Them people don't scare me.”

“If you'll pardon me now, I have an appointment for high tea with my 3rd district councilman. We’ll be discussing investments in offshore rental properties -- the ones in those other neighborhoods."

(submitted press release)

New Albany loses out on neighborhood grants, and the state of Indiana even spells "stabilization" incorrectly on its press release.

From the website:

The Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA) Board of Directors met on May 28, 2009 to vote on funding recommendations for the NSP Community Neighborhood Revitalization Fund.

$66 million was requested by cities and entities in Indiana, $50 million was awarded by the IHCDA, and apparently none of it goes to New Albany.

It's a win for the Coffey/Price impedimista faction ... and a loss for the city of New Albany.

Remember it in 2011.

Councilman Cappuccino prepares for tonight's city council meeting by throwing neighborhood tantrum.

Here's the agenda for tonight's city council meeting.

Last on the list: The zoning ordinance that wouldn't die, as The Gary emerges from the Wendy's value meal graveyard to once again challenge his sister's ethical sensibility -- a challenge that she'll once again fail according to the ironclad dictate that New Albany politicians forever and always aim for the lowest of common denominators, not the higher ground.

Meanwhile, the inexplicable and inexcusable presence of the Wizard of Westside on any commission with the most remote connection to commonly shared concepts of "redevelopment" was again made laughingly obvious yesterday:

Dan Coffey upset over selection for homeownership bid in New Albany, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune).

New Albany’s bid for neighborhood stabilization funds targeted the S. Ellen Jones area — a move that angered Redevelopment Commission member and City Council President Dan Coffey.

Benedetti backs down: Gee, let's talk about stabilization after all (R-09-05).

Imagine if you could watch this on television instead of letting me type it. That would be progressive. That's why is doesn't happen, because then you could observe the futility of the council obstructionists from home ... and with good beer, no less.

---

The deputy mayor comes forward, and CM Benedetti says "oops": I had no idea it was time sensitive.

Meanwhile, every ROCK activist has left the room, satisfied that the only conceivable threat to women and children could come from John Mattingly's live dancers.

That's pathetic. Ten people remain in the room to talk about neighborhood stabilization. Ten, counting city officials and Chief Crabtree. You'd think that ... never mind.

ROCK doesn't care about what is real, only what is ideology. I'll write about this in a future column.

Carl explains the program. NSP. $50 million sitting there to be divided; state issued a notice to make proposals. On Feb. 13, the city indicated willingness to get some of it. Funds have to be requested through a proposal. There must be a framework. The city went through the HUD stats to determine eligibility -- greatest propensity for foreclosure and low income occupancy. The census tract with the best rationale is Census Tract 704 (near east end, downtown to Vincennes between Market and Beeler. Redevelopment discussed Tract 707 (west of State by Cherry and West).

Carl provides far more information than this exhausted group deserves. Forty minutes to chart cabarets, and they're toast. Ten minutes to explain the neighborhoods ... at least the smutty-nosed ones are no longer here. Carl justifies the investment wished for SEJones neighborhood. I suppose he has to talk Dan Coffey down off the ledge. I expect Steve Price will speak against the idea of improving his own constituency.

No ... don't mention the neighborhood associations ... no ... Price will go berserk.

Ten minutes in, Benedetti demands that Carl cut to the chase. $5 million for what he's tried to explain already, and also more ("couple million") for lower income homeowners. Vision is to help people be homeowners.

Coffey: "We went throught this once before ... S Ellen ones is worst than it was before."

Carl: "I don't know what you're talking about."

Coffey: "How much was spent when the city purchased all this property?"

Carl: "For the park?"

Coffey: "What's happened is the dilapidated housing is gone ... it's moved across the street." "Hoping that ... other organizations to come in there."

Coucil cabal revealed: Benedetti wants to see monies for other areas. So does Gahan, Messer and McLaughlin. Coffey obviously fears the influence of the evil east enders, and Price does too ... except that he's an east ender himself, albeit a Dewey Heights east ender. That might matter.

Benedetti: Couldn't we come back and redistribute it after we're awarded?

Carl fishes for carp. Yep, we'd have to come back for specific applications. Will that appease them enough to get a vote?

Benedetti: "At least we're going to apply ... and you're going to update us?"

Of course, says Carl.

Price: "Is it possible ... you have enough to do 75 houses ... can you (apply) to bad property (names various streets where he owns rental property).

Carl: Can only compete for the money for a concentrated area. Cannot scatter it around. State advised city to shrink the area considered.

Coffey complains that it's just something else coming up at the last minute, even though he previously spoke of hearing it in redevelopment. If he did, then why didn;t he let the other council members know? Unless, of course, the real point as always is to preserve the best possible grandstanding opportunities.

Messer: Why is Linden Meadows incomplete? "My concern ... if we don;t put something in play to get those houses to market," (Price interrupts - they want $100,000 for them) (Messer: no they aren't)

Old time council follies ...

Coffey: Objects to the area being chosen. Now all devolves into chaos, as members each speak about the specific topic that concerns them ... even Coffey wants to vote. Gahan has to intervene to explain the vote. They vote to bring it back up. Now they reintroduce it and maybe even will vote before midnight.

For it: All of them. None against it. Afer all that. Over.

Upon closer examination: CM Benedetti tables time-sensitive ordinance for neighborhood stabilization.

Earlier in the evening, 5th district councilperson Diane Benedetti tabled a resolution: Resolution of the Common Council of the City of New Albany to Authorize Submission of an NSP Proposal to the Indiana Housing and Community development Authority.

She cited her absence during the past week and the fact that she'd not had time to consider it.

But isn't this resolution time sensitive? I'm told that the deadline passes before the next council meeting.

Hmm. What's this about?