Granted, clogging our streets with charitable donation bucket brigades MIGHT slow traffic, but it would be UNSAFE to bet on it.

Noting in advance that my 3rd district council representative Greg Phipps is absolutely correct in expressing disgust with the solar-powered Nothing Doing Machines, as erected by planners who never walk, for the ostensible purpose of helping pedestrians cross the street, here's the rough paraphrase of a conversation he and I had following Thursday evening's soul-crushing student city council meeting.

Me: We need to talk about the street grid.

Greg: I know you have issues, but look, at times you have to compromise, and it's better than it was before. It's a start.

Me: Okay, for the sake of argument, let's say it is better than before. It can still be improved, so we need to talk about the next phases for improvement.

Greg: Well, you know, probably nothing else is ever going to happen.

Me: 

As reported earlier, council devoted thirty minutes to a discussion of potential ways to alter the body's own previous legislation in 2013 to ban non-profits, little leaguers, knitting circles and Dishevel New Albany from sending volunteers wading out into the street to solicit donations from road-enraged drivers at major  intersections.

Back in 2013, when Dan Coffey lobbied furiously in favor of this ban (now he's caterwauling just as frenetically against it), the major point in its favor was safety:

"Drivers suck and they're distracted, and walkers suck and they're distracted, and we need to keep them separate." 

Actually there's a far better argument, one so obvious that even Bob Caesar grasps a shard of it, in that if non-profits can't come up with any better way to raise money than shaming distracted drivers, maybe they need to rethink their entire existence.

But I digress.

Last Thursday night, the discussion got predictably weird when Phipps suggested that in the aftermath of the two-way grid project's completion, and the addition of turn lanes at those major intersections preferred by city-sanctioned panhandlers, it is more dangerous for bucket brigades in 2018 than it was in 2013, to which Coffey turned on this lazy fastball down the middle of the chute and correctly replied, paraphrased:

But if the grid project actually has slowed traffic and improved matters for the pedestrians like you say it has, wouldn't collecting donations be safer, not more dangerous?

Yes, it was THAT kind of night. Here's a series at Strong Towns, which I'll introduce with this passage, substituting Our Town for Wichita):

In cities where Vision Zero has worked, the public sector has shown dedication to reorienting its departments away from the traditional, siloed approach toward a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to streets that involve traffic engineers, police and fire departments, elected officials, public health professionals, and the community from the very outset of streets projects — extending this collaboration to community-wide planning for safe streets.

In New Albany, we must change our conception of streets simply as conduits to move cars as efficiently as possible to places that enhance the health, wealth, and safety of all New Albanians.

In successful cities, streets are for people.

A New Vision for our Streets: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 by Alex Pemberton

A completely preventable traffic death shows us how street design makes our cities unsafe, and how simple adjustments could change that.

Begging for density -- or, a city council meeting recap for Thursday, March 15, and the case for liquor as proper vaccine.

I live in a country that chronically devalues, denigrates and under-funds social services — or, if you will, the safety net.

Then, neglecting to drink the three martinis that might have given me immunity to the inevitable IQ-reduction therapy, I am treated to a city council populated entirely by 50-something white male NAHS graduates undertaking to discuss helping strapped local charities by reviving curbside donations by sanctioned panhandlers bearing buckets, but only the certified organizations, mind you; we wouldn’t want those in need to beg for THEMSELVES, would we?

How gauche, so let’s be sure and make the bucket brigades LOOK as respectable as possible, maybe lanyards, badges and a dress code, then they’ll fleece enough drivers on Calmed! Chaotic! two-way streets (no one can decide which, so enter your biased viewpoint here) to refrain from soaking the taxpayers for social services.

We don’t want it to LOOK bad when these sanctioned organizations like the Salvation Army shake down drivers, or it to LOOK bad for the needy to tend to their own panhandling, or for it to LOOK bad for there to be people in need in the first place, which is why perennial luminaries like Dan Coffey can simultaneously insist there isn’t anywhere near enough affordable housing in NA, then vote against the Mews proposal in his own district, though he flipped and voted for a PUDD development at Daisy & Green Valley (below), all the while insisting that 500 affordable housing units at the New Albany Housing Authority must be abolished.

Meanwhile, ask our nine city council members to define density, and their answers will range from “3” to “33” to “TILT.” The Democrats who wrote the comprehensive plan that stipulated density continue to oppose density, having forgotten to define it exactly in the document they approves.

The banker Blair supports annexing more suburban land when we know it only escalates maintenance costs. Paddy Mac thinks walkers are always to blame in accidents because they don’t know their place, and compares the street grid to the painted striping on a factory floor. Coffey plots a coup to seize municipal power for the K of C; barring that, he'll accept public money to restore the facade.

Barksdale, supposedly a Republican, supports the Mayor (a Democrat) more often than Phipps, one of Gahan’s most dependable yes men.

If I were to predicate my 2019 support for council representatives on a simple pattern of logical consistency from one meeting to the next — from ONE MINUTE to the next -- there’d be no need to even consider voting. I haven’t witnessed so many circular arguments since King Larry walked the earth (one time on a single ordinance requiring three votes, Kochert voted for, against, and abstained), when all I really want to do is to live in a country that values social services without the need to assign non-profit bucket-wielders a Caesar-issue security clearance.

The newspaper's coverage centers on the zoning ordinance. Nothing is said about the "let's make NA great again for non-profits begging in the streets" ordinance adjustment, which ultimately was tabled so Coffey can fine-tune it into a shibboleth he can micro-manage between barbecued bologna campaign backslappers.

New Albany City Council turns down proposed development at Daisy Lane and Green Valley, by Erin Walden (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — A high-end housing development proposed to go near Green Valley Road and East Daisy Lane has been squelched.

The first two readings of an ordinance that would have rezoned 5.1 acres for development failed on a 5-4 vote during New Albany City Council's meeting Thursday night.

Nash: "I just had to get a little creative."

I may be a complete joke, but I know a good column when I read it.

NASH: Give what you can, by Matt Nash

 ... Seven years ago, I decided that I would do what I could for a charity. I don’t have a lot of money to make much of a difference, but I do have some time and some talents that can be used for good instead of evil. Over the years, I have developed a few different ways to help raise money for the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics. This year was my most successful in collecting donations — I just had to get a little creative.

Omnibus Alternative Charitable Solicitation Reform Plan is just a ditty about Scott and Diane.

This handy pictogram summarizes NAC's reform plan for local charities no longer able to use "roadblocks" to ask for donations.

Kindly note that in the future, we suggest using public art installations to block roads, thus freeing the charities to be reformed in the way we're about to outline.

Step One: Use Urban Enterprise Association facade grant funds to construct a new Potemkin Facade next to an existing drive-through window attached to one of the many abandoned fast food restaurants and banks. Because UEA funds for facade grants are limited, we'll have to augment them with EDIT monies, but it's for a good cause, right? We're providing an alternative here.

Step Two: Various worthy causes, ranging from established Salvation Armies to those ballclubs needing gas money for the tournament, need only apply to the Board at Works for their turn at the drive-through window, which is far safer than running out into intersections of streets that are so dangerous that we tolerate them every single day.

Step Three: In wintertime, there's room behind the facade for tents and camp stoves and a weenie roast, except of course weenie roasts are governed by the Health Department, so all appropriate permits must be acquired!

Step Four: For fear of foregoing the saving grace of Horseshoe Foundation supplemental cash, and remaining mindful of that most important of the Foundation Commandments (Honor Thy Funder), all participating charities will be compelled to belong to one or both of the major political parties, even if their non-profit charters say otherwise.

Step Five: So long as the city council engages the same architectural, construction, heating, air conditioning, plumbing and interior decorating firms always hired for such projects, we should be able to get this drive-through Potemkin bucket window built for about $1.1 million, not counting the actual pails.

What'd I tell you? It's even cheaper than Rent Boy Park.

Takin' it to the streets? Not so fast. They're dangerous, you know.

Last night our city council voted 5-3 in favor of an ordinance prohibiting groups from soliciting donations at intersections, a grand tradition that the ordinance identified variously as roadside collections and roadblocks, and which many others view as sanctioned panhandling.

Mercifully, Bob "CeeSaw" Caesar was absent, or else it would have belatedly occurred to him that we pay for Rent Boy Park with roadblocks manned by volunteers in gaily festooned period costume.

Council members Diane McCartin-Benedetti and Scott Blair voted against the ordinance because they said it doesn’t provide groups an alternative to raise money.

“I’d like to be able to give these groups a way to continue to do their fundraising,” Blair said.

Sometimes these people make you want to scream. Since when is it the council's business to help these groups continue fundraising?

Since when is it the council's responsibility to excuse safety concerns merely because we've always done it that way, which incidentally is the same reasoning that kept raw sewage flowing through streetside ditches for millennia.

Something that seems to have eluded Blair, Benedetti and even John Gonder (who didn't really explain his no vote) is that the council was being asked to consider only one specific factor with this ordinance:

Are such collections safe, or not?

Apocryphal evidence points to the latter. City attorney Stan Robison concurred that they are dangerous. The fire department long ago suspended intersection collections for the Crusade for Children owing to these being unsafe.

The argument in favor of continuing the tradition came down to the tradition itself: We've always done it this way, and it's for a worthy cause. Dan Coffey shredded this, saying in essence that just because wading into a street with buckets is the easiest way to ask for money, it doesn't mean it's the only way. Groups that are sufficiently creative to perform a service (car washes) or pair with businesses for fundraising promotions illustrate that there are other paths.

However, it should be noted that the ordinance's sponsor, Greg Phipps, very nearly (and perhaps unwittingly) offered a reason for me to abruptly flip and oppose the measure when he observed that such middle-of-the-street collections "slow down traffic."

Really? Then perhaps we should have them more often. Perhaps they should become a permanent, 24-hour feature of Spring Street near my house and Greg's.

That's because the final and most annoying obvious truth missed by council on this matter was that with everyone in the room agreeing that city streets are sufficiently unsafe to merit either an outright ban on buckets or at least more stringent safety precautions on the part of panhandlers, that maybe the chaotic traffic situation itself is A PRE-EXISTING DESIGN ISSUE MERITING THE COUNCIL'S ATTENTION BEFORE IT APPLIES BAND-AIDS TO CURBSIDE COLLECTORS?

But, in fairness, how would any of the council members know that? Apart from re-elections campaigns (and maybe not even then), when's the last time you saw any of them walking the sidewalks or riding a bicycle?

What was that?

Oh, sorry. I forgot that in addition to depositing my weapons at the checkpoint before entering the council chamber, I must also secure my rationality at the door.

(This was the 6,000th post at NA Confidential)

Panhandling in the middle of the street about to be abolished. That and porch furniture.

And that's fine by me, with a caveat or two.

Actually, there's no second-guessing the panhandling ordinance. No matter how worthy the cause, empowering people to wade into streets filled with distracted drivers on their iPhones is a profoundly unwelcome clash of the outdated with the post-apocalyptic.

As for the ordinance ridding the city of "indoor" furniture and various appliances arranged tastefully (although usually otherwise) on porches, I'm mostly down with the notion, although (a) it's yet another aesthetic Band-Aid that addresses symptoms, rather than the fundamental rot of slumlordism, and (b) if there's any one thing we've learned during the past decade, such a Band-Aid is meaningless without concrete enforcement plans. I'm told the council discussed enforcement at its work session last week, and that's a positive sign.

I might add (c) that Steve Price won't like it, but then again, that's one impediment we actually did address directly -- with votes. 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps, who handily defeated Price in 2011, is presenting both these measures.

In 2012, Phipps was instrumental in pushing for a reconstituted Human Rights Commission, and he also made a valuable, if largely and intentionally ignored, point that government rushing Caesar-lemming-like to fund church steeple repairs for an active congregation is a genuine church-state separation issue.

The muddy medieval pall of the Price Error is lifting in the 3rd. The council meeting is tonight. The newspaper article is here: New Albany City Council may abolish collections at intersections