There's a 4-way stop at Elm and 13th. The only question is whether it came with a ribbon.

Does this mean the forever variably apolitical Develop New Albany is endorsing candidate Phipps? Let's follow the Facebook sharing protocol of the presumed non-profits. First, from DNA back to ESNA.

Then ESNA to the source.

It's an election year, and candidate Phipps says he has been "working with the city for several months," as back-room and non-transparently as always, to get a 4-way stop at Elm and 13th.

Fair enough; it's been needed not for months, but for YEARS. After almost eight years of rubber-stamping City Hall expenditures, it's always good to achieve something.

So, ignoring the pertinent question of why Phipps took so long to work behind the scenes, and why his cherished overlord the mayor took so long to give his "superstar" BOW mentor Warren the okay to release this intersection just in time to become a nice pre-primary poll-boost, there’s an absolutely positive aspect to all this electioneering.

That's because the same Democrats who dragged their feet for months before making this needed change so a Democrat could take re-election campaign credit for it can no longer be the same Democrats resisting similar proposals (hint: 4-ways for Spring and 10th; for Main and Bank; rinse, repeat) because the statute of limitations has expired for the same Democrats who oft times before used the completely spurious excuse of a need for traffic studies and INDOT indulgences to avoid mustering the simple one-two cojones to do what's right.

All of which Phipps never questioned until his passive acquiescence to Gahan's hack job on Speck's plan produced tepid two-way street grid results.

But hear me out; this 4-way at Elm and 13th is genuinely important.

Finally a 4-way precedent has been set, so let’s hope future action to #slowthecars might someday occur when it ISN’T an election year.

Dude; that'd almost be PROGRESSIVE, wouldn't it?

Low comedy? It's in DNA's DNA, but the Speck proposals offer a final chance for redemption.

I got your networking, guys: Two way streets.

But you must want to learn what the possibilities mean, and stop planning prom parties.

For a full eight days after Jeff Gahan’s vest-hugging, muffler-dragging politburo peeked timorously out of its down-low bunker and at long last allowed Jeff Speck’s Downtown Street Network Proposal (which it had possessed for a whole month) to be seen by city residents, Develop New Albany remained silent.

Nothing unusual there ... and that's the big, recurring problem.

Finally a link appeared on DNA’s Facebook page. Previously, the best our formally chartered Main Street organization could manage was a bizarre web poll asking if we’d rather have bagels or two-way streets downtown.

Unsurprisingly, the National Main Street Center, DNA’s purported policy parent, has not stated a position on bagels versus English muffins or whole wheat toast.

However, it has been interested in one- to two-way street conversions since at least 2006 – and DNA has been avoiding discussion of this and other matters of genuine significance for just as long, citing ad nauseam its non-profit status as proof of an inability (read: unwillingness) to follow its own organizational mandate and take a stand for something that supports its mission.

Of course, there are embarrassing exceptions. When the topic is Susan Kaempfer's quarter-million dollar farmers market build-out, DNA hurriedly sheds ballast and tramples napping house cats in a rush to the front of the queue in support of politically-motivated pork-barrel expenditures.

Somehow, that's different -- and the "somehow" never manages to get explained.

Again and again, one witnesses the mind-numbing conceptual numbness, thinking that surely by sheer law of average even DNA’s perennially stopped clock has an outside chance to be right twice in a decade, give or take a leap year, but somehow it succeeds in forging consistent group-thought capable of freezing time dead-ice solid.

Instead, DNA functions as a random billboard generator, merrily touting whomever will pay it, from churches to retail, and from eateries to realtors, although precisely one retailer is represented at the board level, and no restaurant or bar owners or managers can be found seated there.

Come to think of it, that's no coincidence, is it?

After all, small indie retailers and food service businesses are the entities that have by far done the most for downtown with the least governmental assistance (is there a number lower than zero?) They simply have no time to coddle bad actors.

Indies also are the ones that might finally get some help from City Hall if Gahan can bring himself to lead for once, and implement Speck’s proposals in a timely fashion, instead of dragging feet of concrete through an election season that stands to place progress in an even colder deep-freeze than New Albany's unenviable historical standard.

It's just my opinion, and feel free to disagree, but the advent of Speck's street network proposals is last call for DNA, which must support street reform explicitly and publicly, and contribute to advocacy for implementation. Anything less, and it's time to dissolve DNA and start from scratch.

The city needs a Main Street organization with cojones, don't you think?

Put it on the platform.

But I thought DNA was the political arm of England Doug's re-election campaign. Either way, it isn't very non-profit of them.

Yesterday, NAC's co-editor made a pithy comment at Fb:

"Develop New Albany: The political arm of the mayor's office."

Later he noted that at present, two city operatives and a council woman are listed as being "attached" to DNA: Mike Hall and Tonya Fischer, and Shirley Baird. And yet it was David Duggins who accompanied Baird to last November's meeting at the Board of Works, when the latter revealed funding for the ill-advised farmers market fluff-up.

I'm not even sure why we're having an "interested downtown economic entities" meeting this morning. It appears that DNA already has been gifted with the brass ring. Funny, I was always under the impression that one was compelled to actually grab it. Silly me.

Bluegill has written so much of note these last two days that I'll continue to quote passages of his with which I'm in agreement.

"I vote to remove DNA from the farmers market operation altogether so that we might, as a community, have an honest conversation about its future."

And, best of all, another in a long, sad line of local luminaries unable to fathom the true nature of social media.

"After DNA rolled out its market 'poll', there was some discussion last night on their Facebook page with some for but several against, particularly after others explained what DNA had not: that their proposal will cost over $300K and that there are other potential alternatives. Went to see how it was going this morning and DNA had deleted the whole thread. Great stuff from a group whose charter calls for them to help facilitate discourse around downtown issues.

To which I'll add: It's also worth noting that the last time discussions started occurring regularly at DNA's page, postings by non-administrators were disabled.

The ineptitude would be staggering if it weren't so Intrinsically (though not Exclusively) New Albany.

Consider going to the polling page and disrupting DNA's bush league tactics by voting for the parking garage. Real poll questions for real people, here.