Baylor Family Croatia, Slovenia and Trieste 2019, Chapter 8: Weird circular Yugoslav garage architecture and an invigorating walk by the river.

Wednesday had ended with a tour at the Pivovarna (brewer) Union.

At sunup on Thursday, something strange happened because the sun actually came out. It did so again several times during the day, although we were destined to glimpse only a few patches of truly blue sky until arriving in Trieste.

Our chosen sleeping spot, the Hotel Park, refers to itself as the "most urban and green hotel in the centre of Ljubljana," and this description seems fairly accurate. We enjoyed it.

View from the hotel
window on Thursday afternoon.

It's an extensively remodeled late 1960s-era Yugoslav high rise in the middle of a regular neighborhood, quiet and well-situated near the epicenter of town, as well as only a short distance from the railroad station. As already noted, the hotel restaurant is quite good. In addition to a menu of Slovenian standards, there's an entire selection of Indian food. It turns out the chef is from the subcontinent.

With the weather finally clearing, we resolved to spend a casual day walking, resting and snacking while deciding where to partake of Thanksgiving dinner. This brought us back to Slovenska hiša, this time for breakfast.

Nice eggs.

We began our stroll in the old town below the castle, by the market, river and downtown shopping streets.

See the knives and forks?

Then had a morning coffee.

The underground bins are one component of a comprehensive municipal commitment to reducing waste. Learn more at The Guardian: From no recycling to zero waste: how Ljubljana rethought its rubbish.

The longer 25-minute walk riverside walk then began.

Now about that strange double circular structure. It is a parking garage, not a place of residence.

It was confusing at first sight, as it's not easy to see actual automobiles without looking closely. Rather, the individual spaces have all manner of stored items stacked near the windows. Consequently the notion of "parking garage" in this sense seems more about replicating one's home garage rather than temporary hourly or even longer term parking.

TGH-48 Car Park
Garažna hiša TGH-48

Architect: Savin Sever
Address: Ambrožev trg 4, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Completion: 1969

Here the problem of parking in the city was solved with the extremely efficient use of space. Sever developed a system whereby the number of car parking spaces could optionally be increased by adding new stories. The only limitation on adding the stories is the height of the stairways and length of the vehicle access. The two-way traffic system, internal communications, and spacious parking spaces allow safe and simple parking.

I was fascinated by these nearby structures under repair, which turn out to a former sugar refinery dating to 1834 called the Cukrarna.

Our original walking destination was a second-hand shop, which offered this old radio among numerous other trinkets.

By the time we found the shop, the scene had turned almost suburban.

Returning to the city center, we ambled past houses, a hospital and an old industrial space subdivided into art studios, performance venues and a skate park.

For my pal Roz.

A late lunch followed, just salads and drinks. LOO-BLAH-NAH is a local craft brewery; I had a pale ale as well as an IPA, both solid. Diana's choice was rum tea.

Passing through the market again to buy souvenirs, we smelled a stall: fresh kraut.

Nearby is the place that sells wine and fish.

And always another castle view.

After a siesta, Thanksgiving dinner in Slovenia.

DNA posts exciting, incisive new farmers market poll.

Thanks to DP for the inspiration.

Gonder: A farmers market alternative.

At the Thursday meeting of the council, councilman-at-large John Gonder suggested operating the farmers market in and around the street level of the parking garage at State and Market.

Before you scoff, consider John's ten reasons. DNA's grandees are not going to like it, but he has some very good points.

Bill of Fare

Last night at the Common Council meeting, the civic equivalent of haggis was served to some picky Council diners. Following on the heels of a Tribune article, Wednesday the 19th, which revealed that a Farmer's Market redo had arrived at the table ready for consumption, came news that we're going be about $75,000 short of paying the tab.

While the Council had appropriated $270,000 for an addition at the existing market site, because of grading, and drainage work at the expansion, those funds would be insufficient. A discussion of the new reality revealed little stomach for additional funds for the expansion.

A somewhat offhand remark led to further exploration following the meeting. The remark was a question, "had it been considered to move the Farmer's Market to the municipal parking garage?" Prior to looking for ways to meet the new funding requirements of the Farmer's Market expansion, at the current site, it might be worthwhile to consider some of the benefits of moving to a new venue at the parking garage, which is hardly used on weekends.

Leak the plans, win a hundred bucks.

At his new blog, Dan Coffey wrote:

Also, there are those that want to use the EDIT money for a $12 million parking garage and a multi million dollar city hall. I feel we should use our resources to fix the problems at hand before we bond millions of dollars that we do not have.

Fair enough.

Note that the two sentences express very different ideas. The first implies that EDIT money will be spent on one or both conjectured projects. The second sentence expresses the viewpoint that if such projects actually were on the table, other ideas would be better. However, the impact of the second sentence is dependent on the implications of the first being true.

Are there spade-ready concrete proposals for a parking garage and/or city hall? If so, shouldn't we be able to locate them?

I have a hundred dollars for the first person who can provide written proof that any such proposal, either for a parking garage or a city hall, actually exists.

I won't ask for the copies of the city council ordinance approving one or both, because we all know that hasn't happened. Barring any such evidence, we can assume that while Coffey is not lying outright, that he is using scare tactics with no basis in fact. If such evidence exists, then he's nailed it. Which is it?

Goebbels said it best.

Or perhaps it was Goering.

No matter the source, it remains the case that the bigger and more breathtaking the lie, the more likely gullible folks are to believe it. Locally, no one fabricates them better than the 1st district’s Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey, who dispensed his favorite tall tale to the Tribune’s reporter in an article today about the city budget.

Coffey proposes using money owed to the city’s Economic Development Income Tax fund from the State Street parking garage tax-increment financing district, to float a bond for paying for officers.

The old “pay back the $3 million” line should be enshrined on the Urban Legends web site alongside the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. My colleague Jeff rebutted it only recently in the comments section of another blog, after which the pins could be heard dropping.

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The bond for the parking garage was initially approved by the Council so that it would be paid by both EDIT and TIF, with a majority coming from EDIT.

As stated in the notes, the bank didn't finish the top floors of its building as soon as expected. That means not as much TIF was collected as expected in the earliest years of the bond, hence the $256K shortfall mentioned.

The Council was asked to appropriate additional EDIT to cover that shortfall and the lease rental reserve. That total, according to the notes, was $580K.

The rest of the $3.6 million had already been allocated to the garage in the original bond agreement. It was neither extra nor a loan. Only the $580K was additional. The $3,696,350 mentioned was the total amount of EDIT spent on the garage including both the $3 million already pledged by the council and the additional $580K to be requested.

You'll also note that Mr. Malaysz suggested that the money ($580K) COULD be paid back. Just because he mentioned it in a Redevelopment meeting DOES NOT mean that the Council voted to set it up that way. The notes posted mean only that it was discussed as a possibility outside of a Council meeting.

When Dan Coffey brought a bogus resolution forward to pay more than $3 million from TIF to EDIT last year based on this rumor instead of actually doing his homework (he never even requested information about the garage bond), Mr. Rosenbarger offered to provide Coffey and the entire Council with the original bond documentation showing his error. Coffey, of course, refused.

Since that time, the long disproven rumor of a $3 million loan has continued to circulate, usually from anonymous sources who, like Coffey, are more interested in political turmoil than the truth.

Note also that the same anonymous gripes continue to claim on your blog, as did Coffey at the time, that our tax dollars subsidize the operation of the parking garage.

Their own notes here prove them wrong, showing that the garage actually turns a small profit each year. They'll no doubt purposely forget that and go back to griping about subsidizing garage operations soon.

In short, why doesn't TIF pay back $3 million to EDIT? Because it doesn't owe EDIT $3 million and never did.

Besides, EDIT money can be spent on anything that TIF can be used to finance. What's the point of continuing to demand the false repayment if the money can be spent on the important projects you mention anyway?

Rewriting history: It's "them people," not the Devil, that makes Coffey do it.

In the following passage, which I've edited from two e-mails this morning, NAC's Bluegill clearly explains this evening's proposed council chicanery. The text of 1st district councilman Dan Coffey's parking garage/TIF ordinance appears afterward. See also our earlier posting today: City Council love-fest 2-nite: And the magic number is six.

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Dan Coffey is trying to rewrite history.

CM Coffey's ordinance seeks to force the use of over 3 million downtown TIF dollars to repay EDIT funds used on the State Street Parking garage.

The city originally set it up so that bond payments for the State Street garage, which is now paid off in full, were funded 2/3 by EDIT funds and 1/3 by TIF funds. Because a small portion of extra EDIT dollars was used during the life of the bond to make up a TIF shortfall, Coffey is now trying to claim that TIF has to repay the entire amount of EDIT dollars used on the project, which is not only incorrect based on the original agreement but also probably illegal as state law mandates that TIF funds can only be used on infrastructure improvements.

If this passes, all downtown TIF funds collected will be used towards repaying EDIT funds from the old project rather than on continued infrastructure improvements like the new parking garage. Since Coffey is insisting that *all* downtown TIF funds go towards his faulty repayment scheme, the city wouldn't be able to do any TIF financing downtown for years.

Again, it was understood at the time of bond issuance that TIF would not be enough to cover the bond payment and that a majority of the bond payment would come from EDIT. It was purposely and knowingly set up and voted on that way.

To repeat: Coffey is trying to rewrite history.

City Council love-fest 2-nite: And the magic number is six.

First, the good news: Any combination of city council meetings remaining in the year 2007 that total six, and the Gang of Four is reduced to the Dunderhead Duo at the stroke of midnight on December 31, when progressives will take to the streets and cheap champagne will be flowing by virtue of Larry Kochert’s voluntary step down, and Bill Schmidt’s rejection by the voters back in May.

Then again, by then, their replacements might include superannuated relics like James Hollis. But that’s okay. (Most of) our collective hair is sure to grow back even after pulling out by the roots.

In the interim, much havoc remains for wreaking by the bile-infused Neanderthal bloc, beginning tonight, when the spotlight shifts away from redistricting (I might buy myself a mohair suit for the approaching court date) and comes to rest squarely on the latest exciting plan to revitalize downtown, one to be submitted by investors this evening, and one, of course, that is certain to be opposed by the very councilmen representing the areas that stand to benefit the most from it.

Whih, in a nutshell, is New Albanian socio-cultural dysfunction at its very finest.

Previously at NAC: Luddite obstructionists mobilize to fight parking garages -- the latest atheist Commie threat.

Given the intimate link between rental properties and "Re-elect Steve Price to City Council" yard signs, perhaps the best way for the city to approach the new parking garage would be to pretend it is a massive slumlord empowerment property.

Predictably, at the Gang of Four’s semi-official news agency (Six Flags over Screechia), the professorial-pretend duo of Dork and Mindy are having a cow over the looming prospect of downtown infrastructure improvements.

Taxpayers -- we are being screwed by the parking garage project and the request to spend millions of dollars to build another downtown parking garage.

Sadly, half of Freedom of Speech’s "brain" trust knows better, but prefers fomenting self-serving chicanery to putting the muzzle on her decidedly junior partner in trognonymous slime.

Meanwhile, I had breakfast this morning with another of NAC’s friendly confidants, D.T. Redux, and here are excerpts from his comments, as recorded with my favorite Sharpie on a bacon-grease-stained napkin:

The bond issue for the downtown parking garage was always intended to be paid for by a combination of TIF funds and economic development taxes. All the parties to the building and financing of the project decided that it was important to economic development and all understood that the incremental taxes gained could not and would not be sufficient to pay off the bond.

About 2/3 of the annual debt service was always intended to be paid from EDIT tax funds (that's why they called it "economic development). That would be about $400K per year. New taxes generated by the infrastructure improvement were to have paid about $200K. When TIF revenues came up short and late, the debt service still had to be paid. So, the redevelopment commission gained approval from all concerned to use EDIT to make up the shortfall.

Now Mr. Coffey and Erika are pretending to believe (or, delusion being a New Albanian birth right, perhaps they really do believe) that all of the EDIT funds dedicated to retire the bonded indebtedness were somehow a robbery from the taxpayers that must be made good.

First of all, EDIT taxes were until a couple of summers ago restricted to use for economic development projects, which the garage surely was. Second, anyone who opposed the use of EDIT funds to service the garage debt was either silent or could not garner the votes to stop it.

Accordingly, any effort to reclaim every penny of EDIT taxes used for garage debt service is an attempt to cheat the system, to declare a do-over, to repeal the acts of previous administrations and councils who lawfully chose to use those funds as they determined. The only EDIT funds even remotely subject to any "promise" to repay were those used to round out the TIF shortfall. There's no way that the $400K expended each year should even be part of a conversation in this council.

The ordinance and resolution before the city council, however, seeks to reclaim every penny of EDIT money spent to build and pay for the garage. It does not limit itself to recouping the shortfall that EDIT covered, but asks that TIF become a new "riverboat" fund instead of the means to improve and provide incentives for downtown revitalization through infrastructure improvements.

To say that the TIF "owes" $3.6 million to EDIT is grossly inaccurate. Aren’t we all tired of listening to certain members of council denigrating all economic development while trying to fool people into believing every TIF and every incentive is a conspiracy to rob the taxpayers? In fact, a TIF is exactly the opposite of what Mr. Coffey and his allies would have us believe.

What did I do with that damned flower pot?

Luddite obstructionists mobilize to fight parking garages -- the latest atheist Commie threat.

Proposal: New Albany builds garage, developer builds on top, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

A local group wants to build a second component to downtown New Albany’s public Scribner Place development, city administration officials say.

A proposed deal would see the city build a parking garage immediately east of the under-construction YMCA and aquatic center. The private developer would then build a structure atop the garage, obtaining a unique view of the Ohio River.

At the most recent city council meeting, as Dan Coffey and Bill Schmidt outlined their newest old plans for an obstructionist jihad against the 21st century, in this particular instance by renewing the battle against the parking garage that's already been built, Mayor James Garner requested (and in a quite effective deadpan, no less) that the council wait to do so until it hears the proposal outlined by the Tribune's Campbell in the article above.

However, by the informal Gang of Four protocol specifying that the council's lead opposition to progress come from within the council district "threatened" with progress, the logical candidate to lead the Luddite battle against this latest perfectly sensible proposal isn't Coffey, but fellow conjoined councilman Steve Price. The location of the new garage would be just east of Scribner Place (itself located in Coffey's 1st district), which should place it within Price's long-suffering 3rd.

Given the intimate link between rental properties and "Re-elect Steve Price to City Council" yard signs, perhaps the best way for the city to approach the new parking garage would be to pretend it is a massive slumlord empowerment property. Dave Thrasher's art students could disguise the architect's drawings by adding cheap vinyl siding, porch appliances and nice, homey touches like virtual graffiti (for example, numerous "Property tax crisis" slogans) to the cement. Instead of the formless metrosexual people that typically populate such renderings, there could be shirtless meth users with pants around the ankles, unsupervised children in the streets, and unregulated boom cars running them down.

One can only imagine the pride swelling Price's chest as he votes in favor or assisting the constituency that benefits most from his, er, stewardship.

Once approved, the project can be changed back to its original form and the city of the future, as opposed to the past, can reap the benefits. Yes, the Gang of Two will spend the next four years bitching and moaning, but that's okay. They would, anyway, and we'd have another piece of the downtown revitalization puzzle in place.

Get 'em started, Dave. And make it comfy, will ya?