ASK THE BORED (IN EXILE): It appears that street sweeping is suspended through April 7, although it should be eliminated altogether.

From a thousand years ago ... or 2015.

Word has come via 5th district councilman Josh Turner: "No street sweeping through April 7th and subject to change."

Thanks for asking, Josh. After all, the Bored of Works hadn't gotten around to the press release.

This brief suspension of inanity is pleasant enough, given the strange new world of coronavirus containment. Should residents being urged to stay inside also be compelled to go outside and move their cars?

In spite of Mayor Gahan's ongoing efforts to purge learning in favor of the alphabet according to HWC Engineering, words do have meanings, ideas actually matter, and in New Albany street “sweeping” hasn't ever been an issue of cleanliness.

Rather, it is a political hypocrisy issue, fully exposing this city’s historic tendency not only to tolerate selective law enforcement, but to double down, institutionalize and celebrate it as a civic birthright.

A few years back Bluegill perfectly summarized the prevailing idiocy:

A wasteful program is getting more wasteful. As a Midtown resident. I wish they'd stop rather than expand. This is a parking ticket revenue grab, hounding locals for cash while truckers and other passers through speed by unhindered. We're continually told the city can't afford this or that but we can always afford to pay people to ride around in circles all day writing ridiculously expensive tickets to residents. They even write them when the sweeper isn't sweeping, when people have blocked absolutely nothing. It's a joke.

To repeat with clarity: street “sweeping” should not be expanded. It should be ended. The physical process of “sweeping” is largely futile, and there is no United Nations storm water “law” stipulating dust cloud creation as a workable corrective to anything. Genuine drainage impediments like leaves and garbage barely are addressed by “sweeping.”

Bluegill again:

We'd be better off spending the time and money on drain cleaning and waterway improvements. Instead, the City has chosen the least effective (but most profitable) system to expand.

However, when it comes to profitability and effectiveness, the most profound outrage of all is that parking regulations supposedly applying to all city residents are enforced in some instances, as during street “sweeping,” and not in others, as in the entirety of the historic downtown business district.

When I ran for mayor, my team tackled this one (July 6, 2015).

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Campaign Diary, Chapter 2: A Baylor Paper on Street Sweeping.

Wednesday is street sweeping day at my address.

Being a good citizen, I'll go out and make sure the car is moved from the north side of Spring Street, lest I receive a citation for blocking the street sweeper.

Meanwhile, a few blocks west across an imaginary line somewhere, it's theoretically possible to park for weeks on end, in front of a downtown business, taking up a parking space without the slightest worry of being penalized. That's because we don't enforce parking regulations ... unless we do.

You'd need a Ouija board to know when, where and why -- and this must stop.

I'm not convinced the street sweeper has come past for a very long time, judging by the appearance of the parking lanes and the chronically unaddressed instances of road kill in the bicycle path, but when it does, the results are frankly ridiculous. Little of note is removed, and much of it is shifted from curbside directly into the bicycle path or out onto the traffic lanes themselves. All the while, citations are being written.

I have a few ideas on how we might improve this situation. Please read, and give me your feedback. Unlike the current occupant, I'm eager to listen.

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A Baylor Paper on Street Sweeping.

HISTORY: In selected portions of New Albany, from March through October, city crews operate large vehicles with rotating brushes that are designed to “clean” the streets. A complex system of schedules make on-street parkers subject to citations and fines if they leave their cars along the curbs of these selected streets at specific times.

It is important to note that what gets “swept” are the parking lanes – not the streets per se. Although clearing the streets of litter, brush, debris, and deposited oils is a valiant goal, this ongoing program produces onerous side effects while being mostly ineffective at cleaning the selected streets.

Ostensibly, the program is part of an agreement with the EPA as part of this city’s efforts to comply with The Clean Water Act. The sweeping trucks are assumed to be keeping detritus from reaching our streams, including the Ohio River.

PREMISE: In fact, the sweeping program merely rearranges dirt while depositing it up onto sidewalks and onto nearby buildings. In addition, residents are subjected to inconvenience and financial loss. The program is almost universally considered to be a nuisance and to be ineffective. That conclusion is reinforced when we consider that many other streets that drain into our waterways are not subject to any kind of regular street sweeping program.

Further, the inclusion of this street sweeping program into our Clean Water Act compliance protocol is a fraud.

Petroleum products are the most toxic pollutant likely to be transferred from our streets into local waterways. Yet, we do not even attempt to clean the streets themselves – only the parking lanes.4

Perhaps, with other and/or better functioning equipment, a street cleaning program would be effective. But as currently constituted, the program is little more than an expensive make-work project and a scheme to extort money from those who must park their vehicles on city streets.

PROPOSAL: Effective immediately and by executive order, I will declare a 1-year moratorium on the existing street sweeping program. During that year, my administration will explore the implications of the existing program and maintain a regular inspection and reporting program on the cleanliness of the streets within the program area.

We will also inspect those streets outside of the existing program during this moratorium year. As most debris and deposited oils enter our waterways via storm drains, our stormwater professionals and advisers will be heavily consulted.

In addition to routine storm drain clearance, we will operate a crash program of drain clearing before impending storms and after known storms.

If we decide to resume the program in calendar year 2017, we will only do so if it can be proved to be effective.

"Technocratic liberalism prides itself on having no ideology to speak of — which is itself the most dogmatic ideology of them all."

For a very long time, I persisted in the increasingly threadbare notion that lesser-evilism "worked" for me; therefore, according to Tony Blair, it "mattered."

But it wasn't working, and what ultimately matters to me is voting "for" rather than "against."

This article explains it rather brilliantly. Youthful local Democrats are urged to read it, seeing as their elders probably won't.

Twilight of the Technocrats? by Luke Savage (Jacobin)

Technocratic liberalism prides itself on having no ideology to speak of — which is itself the most dogmatic ideology of them all.

 ... This is the technocratic fallacy exposed. Behind every political claim or prescription, no matter its source, lies a set of assumptions (conscious or otherwise) about what the horizons of politics are or what they ought to be. And more than anything else these assumptions, and the political narratives that follow, are shaped by the social and cultural outlooks of the people who hold them.

This is why, if we truly want to understand the politics of the technocratic liberal center, we need look no further than the milieu they emerged from ...

SNIP

... For all its pretensions of transcending the schism between left and right, the Third Way shift amounted to a hostile takeover of the center-left by a new generation of center-right technocrats whose main achievement was welding a refurbished lexicon of liberal progressivism to the processes already initiated by the likes of Thatcher and Reagan.

To this end, the political grammar of figures like Clinton and Blair synthesized and dulled many of the traditional idioms of liberalism, conservatism, and social democracy, redeploying them in the service of manifestly neoliberal causes. A sweeping, pro-corporate agenda of labor outsourcing, privatization, financial deregulation, welfare reform, and means-testing was implemented on the back of antiseptic management-speak incessantly declaring itself loyal to no ideology at all.

What “worked” became the kinds of regulations and investments that would most benefit industries like tech and finance, what qualified as “ideological” being anything out of sync with the professional managerial class and its various political, cultural, or economic outlooks.

Democratic cesspool redux: Gahan, Dickey and Phipps want to remove Lorch as council counsel so Danny Boy will be happy again.

Before trying to grasp why Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey want to be rid of a reliably Democratic city council attorney, it's important to understand the current balance of political power in the city of New Albany.

Gahan, who insists on thinking of himself as a Democrat despite voluminous practical evidence to the contrary, nonetheless probably stands at the apex of his career as mayor. All the civic levers are in his hands. Appointed committees move the slush into proper beak-wetting channels. There isn't a newspaper willing or able to look past the song and dance to the stench beneath. It seems that Gahan is untouchable, and for the moment, he probably is.

However, there is one complicating factor looming increasingly large in Gahan's rear view mirror. The 2015 election cycle brought three Republicans to seats on the city council for the first time in recent memory. One seat already was independent (Scot Blair), and then Dan Coffey defected from the Democratic Party, leaving the tally at 4 Democrats, 3 Republicans and 2 Independents.

In 2016, the Floyd County Democratic Party recorded its second consecutive county-wide electoral debacle, and now Gahan and those four council Democrats are the last bloc standing. The county, state and nation are solid red. No longer assured of a rubber-stamp council shoo-in, as when the tally was 7-1-1 during Gahan's first term, measures must be taken to assure a fifth vote when necessary.

As such, Blair and Coffey are wild cards. They cannot form their own bloc, and so their votes are available to rent in terms of political favors.

We began seeing the dimensions of this new power balance during January's first council meeting, when longtime council president and congenital Gahan yes-man Pat McLaughlin was re-elected 6-3, turning back a challenge from Al Knable with the help of both independent council members.

Blair happily conceded that he shopped his vote for McLaughlin, and why shouldn't he? It's reality, and the way an independent must operate. Concurrently, no one ever seriously doubted that Coffey's move away from the Democratic Party was tactical; better to make one's political capital worth a favor or three than be taken for granted by fellow office holders you detest.

Thus, we are magically transported to last evening's second January council meeting, and the evening for appointments. Last night with tired, mezcal-infused eyes rolling, I surveyed the wreckage of the Human Rights Commission

Gee, CM Phipps, we're mystified as to why the New Albany Human Rights Commission is moribund.

Thursday's drama began when Matt Nash motioned to extend the contract of longtime council attorney (and active Democratic Party member) Matt Lorch. With Bob Caesar mercifully absent, it immediately became apparent that fellow Democrat Greg Phipps was not going to provide a second to Nash's motion.

Coffey verbally objected to the motion, placing him as in favor of terminating Lorch. Knable intervened and an agitated discussion ensued, centering on the power of the president (McLaughlin) in such cases. It now appeared that the Republicans and Nash were in favor of Lorch's continuance, the remaining Democrats against, and Blair mum. Eventually the can was kicked down the road to the next meeting.

The Green Mouse subsequently has suggested that the impetus to remove Lorch emanates directly from Gahan and Democratic Party chairman Dickey, with council Democrats expected to rally around an inexorably wilting flag.

What are we to conclude from all his?

The only rational conclusion based on available evidence is that Coffey's price for rejoining council Democrats, thus providing the necessary fifth vote in those rare occasions when Gahan hasn't already fixed outcomes through appointed committees, is Lorch's head on a platter. Coffey's disdain for Lorch is well documented, and the Copperhead previously served as one of Gahan's chief spear-carriers until the checks stopped coming. Rapprochement serves multiple purposes.

In this scenario, the checks to the Wizard of Westside resume, sparing Gahan the necessity of negotiating with Blair, whom he loathes.

However, taking these machinations at face value, it remains unclear whether Nash is bucking the party establishment, or merely seeks to do the right thing, a commodity quite rare on his side of the aisle.

It's perfectly clear that the wheels are coming off what remains of the Floyd County Democratic Party. If we were to send a drone aloft to gaze at the respective checking accounts of local Democrats and Gahan's political action committee, we'd find a huge disparity. The mayor is hugely flush, and Dickey's oxcart tapped dry (ethically as well as financially).

Gahan surely is dictating Lorch decapitation terms. Dickey has no choice, and no backbone even if he did. Coffey gets back on the train, and Phipps isn't even bothered to rehearse his increasingly trite Hamlet routine. Caesar and McLaughlin both want to be mayor. Blair continues to be cast out by both parties, and a Republican likely will win the next mayoral contest in any event.

Do you have an alternative scenario? Let me know. The entertainment won't last forever, and it helps take our minds off the inauguration.

Leave the children at home, and if you are squeamish, stay home with them!

Because we live in a local political world constructed from classic horror flick posters.

More Sunday reading: "What role will the arts and humanities play in this brave new world?"

Accompany with black coffee.

Matt Burriesci: The Arts and Humanities Aren’t Worth a Dime, by Matt Burriesci (Guernica)

“The object of the education system, taken as whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens.”
-Robert Maynard Hutchins, The University of Utopia

As one of the editors of the Great Books of the Western World, Robert Maynard Hutchins believed that Westerners were all participants in a Great Conversation that began in antiquity. Over the course of several thousand years of that conversation, Western civilization experimented with many different modes of political and economic organization. We have been a polis and we have been an empire; we have lived in feudal monarchies and free republics; we have been capitalist, mercantile, and socialist; we have been democratic and tyrannical. None of these systems has been permanent. Each model has given way to a new one.

The Western World once believed, as Aristotle did, that the political unit preceded the economic one. We changed our minds in the 17th century. John Locke argued that in order to have a government at all, one first had to embrace the concept of private property, and so political freedoms were dependent upon economic liberty. Governments existed for limited purposes, with the consent of the governed, and primarily to defend the property of free citizens. This economic freedom is also what Adam Smith meant when he wrote of the “Invisible Hand.” Smith argued that if individuals were free to choose their own labor, they would choose the most profitable labor possible. By doing so, each individual, guided by a force he or she did not understand (“an Invisible Hand”) would maximize the wealth of the nation.

Today we have come to understand economic metrics as the only units of measurement. We talk about “the marketplace of ideas,” as we “vote with our dollars.”

Scotland: Should it stay or should it go?

It's a fascinating topic, this potential Scottish statehood, but unfortunately the gist for me is a feeling of being ever more isolated in my own place. Independence for Indiana, Kentucky or Floyd County would stem from a fervent desire for fewer, not more, democratic values.

I'm not ready for King Seabrook and the Sheriff of Bushingham. The expatriatism option seems ever more appealing. Yuck.

If I were a Scot, I might vote yes to independence. As it is, I can only plead with them to stay, by Jonathan Freedland (Guardian)

Ignored for so long, it's little wonder so many in Scotland are straining to break away. But heaven help us all if they do

... This, then, is what's driving so many Scots to consider making the break: a despairing fear that, given the way a few marginal seats in middle England can decide UK elections, Britain will never again return to the kind of social democratic values that still find a ready consensus in Scotland. It's not that the Scots are leaving Britain – it's that Britain has left them.

ON THE AVENUES: New Albany’s political culture is designed to reject Jeff Speck.

ON THE AVENUES: New Albany’s political culture is designed to reject Jeff Speck.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

“You’ve got to own the room with smarts. I’m not gonna apologize for smart people.”
--Lexington (KY) Mayor Jim Gray, quoted at Insider Louisville

Just think about it for a moment.

How many New Albanians do you know who would dare utter Mayor Gray’s words aloud – even if they were lying?

For that matter, how many residents of Mark Seabrook’s and Steve Bush’s Floyd/Macon County Line would harbor the faintest degree of such subversion, much less state it publicly?

I’m not restricting this survey of scarcity to the odiferous heritage of New Albanian political culture, but since you’ve asked, let’s take a look.

New Albany political culture is Dixiecrat dependent.

New Albany political culture is slumlord dependent.

New Albany political culture is speeding pass-through-traffic dependent.

New Albany political culture is lowest-common-denominator dependent.

At least New Albany political culture doesn’t apologize for smarts. Rather, it expresses open contempt for them.

With degrading, self-defeating dependencies like these, it’s easy to see why New Albany political culture suffers from savage allergic reactions: To ideas, to vision, and to those with the ability to express them.

One searches in vain through two centuries of New Albany governmental history for instances of rooms owned by smarts, and instead finds the official city symbol of vacant lots. One seeks boldness, and is confronted with change-resistant, goggle-eyed terror of modernity. One asks why the same civic mistakes must be repeated over and over, and this time, the answer comes far more quickly than it should.

Now Roger, how else do you expect us to win elections?

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By all rights, Jeff Speck’s visit to New Albany today should be an occasion for joyous celebration. It doesn’t matter who brought him here or why, because the author of “Walkable City” will be right there in the library, and for once, smarts will be owning a room in this city. In an unprecedented process of osmosis, perhaps Speck’s walkability mojo will rub off on those luncheon chat attendees carrying city pay stubs in their wallets.

If so, then why do I feel like earnest, trusting Charlie Brown, jogging toward the football, and all the while suspecting that quite soon, I’ll be flat on my back – again – in the cold, oozing mud?

Maybe it’s a combination of factors gleaned from long experience and consistent disappointment, although it comes down to anal glaucoma: My ass can’t see New Albany political culture allowing a room … a city … to be owned by smarts. In two hundred years, it never has.

Why would it “smart” now?

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As I write these words, filled with hope and dread in unequal measure, it’s dark outside. Especially in winter, I often awaken quite early on weekdays. My seat in the chair by the fireplace affords a view of East Spring Street. Until 5:00 a.m., there isn’t much going on, but between 5 and 6, the pace quickens.

A variety of dump trucks, delivery vans and numerous half-block-long semi-trailers usually begins passing through around this time. And why not? As currently constructed, Spring Street’s primary purpose is to facilitate passing through.

I can hear their approaching rumble to the east, where the stoplight at 15th Street releases unimpeded travel all the way until 8th. By the time they’ve reached my block, full torque is under way. In a 30 m.p.h. zone, the majority of these vehicles pass my house at speeds surely reaching the mid-forties, and perhaps as much as 50 m.p.h.

And why not?

As we’ve seen for decades, and as the bookseller recently proved anew simply by asking to see the piddling record of police citations issued per annum, speed enforcement barely exists in New Albany. Except that this isn’t the point, because the most glaring omission on the part of political culture in New Albany isn’t speed enforcement, or ordinance enforcement, or anything enforcement.

It’s imagination. The ordinance prohibiting political imagination is the only one we bother enforcing.

New Albany political culture is blinders dependent. Using Spring Street as just one of many examples, New Albany political culture cannot imagine the wide, home- and business-lined Spring Street as a neighborhood-friendly grand avenue, intended not for domineering automotive traffic to drive as quickly and dangerously as it can in a pell-mell rush for the I-64 ramp, but for the use of all humans irrespective of their conveyance, whether vehicular or with their own two feet.

However, New Albany political culture quite easily imagines one-way Spring Street gifted with even worse traffic issues, courtesy of the Main Street Diversion Project.

Did I mention that the transportation planners live on Main Street?

Seems I’m not the only one with anal glaucoma. New Albany political culture cannot see its ass inhabiting rooms owned by smarts, because smarts are a threat to a system predicated on managing decay, stupidity and fear. It isn’t this or that political party. It isn’t one administration as opposed to another. It’s been 24-7-365, since the year 1817 – sorry, CeeSaw, that’s the real date.

Jeff Speck’s appearance is hours away, and I feel dirty already. Maybe it’s a combination of factors, although in the end, it’s probably because dirty and demeaned is how New Albany political culture wants me to feel. I resist it, but one can only shower so much.

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Yesterday I was texting a fellow downtown business owner. We were discussing how to market our establishments in the ingoing absence of an economic development plan for downtown. He asked:

Sometimes I wonder if they ever leave New Albany. If they do haven't they already seen it being done in other places?

I answered:

They have, and it scares them out of their wits.

Welcome to New Albany, Jeff Speck, and good luck. You’re welcome to use the tub at 1117 East Spring before you move on to Frankfort. You’ll likely be needing it.

Cincy will have its street car, after all. Well, maybe.

On December 16, we took a peek.

Politicians, streetcars and money in Cincinnati.

A streetcar system is coming back to Cincinnati, except maybe it isn't, even though construction has started. There was an election, the political hand was rejigged, and now it's all muddy. Very, very muddy.

Maybe it's a bit less muddy now.

Cincinnati Will Complete Its Streetcar, by Angie Schmitt (DCStreetblog)

 ... The area’s regional transit agency, SORTA, has agreed to assume responsibility for operating the four-mile starter loop. It will be the first time Cincinnati has had rail transit in more than 60 years. The project was hard-fought right until the bitter end. The Federal Transit Administration has indicated it would pull $45 million in funding for the project at midnight tonight unless the city agreed to resume construction.

Politicians, streetcars and money in Cincinnati.

A streetcar system is coming back to Cincinnati, except maybe it isn't, even though construction has started. There was an election, the political hand was rejigged, and now it's all muddy. Very, very muddy.

I won't pretend to try grasping the political undercurrents.  However, there are lessons to be learned from all of this. For a description of the project, Cincy Streetcar Blog is a good place to start. To update the situation: It's do or die week for Cincinnati's streetcar.

Digging deeper:

EDITORIAL: Localizing Operating Costs for Streetcar Sets Dangerous Precedent, by Randy A. Simes (Urban Cincy)

 On Thursday morning Mayor John Cranley (D) called a press conference for a “major” announcement. He was joined by leadership of labor unions representing city workers, along with Councilman Kevin Flynn (C).

So what was the big news? Well, Mayor Cranley had announced that he would be willing to continue the Cincinnati Streetcar project that has already received direct voter approval twice, support of City Council, appropriated funds for its entire project cost, and began construction, if streetcar supporters could come up with a private funding commitment that would cover all operating costs for the first phase of the system over the next 30 years.

Oh yeah, and he asked that those boosters kindly secure that $60-80 million commitment in one week’s time.

Peeling back the layers, it seems there's a back story, with the streetcar project just one aspect of the debate with respect to economic development, revitalization and gentrification.

Streetcar debacle hurts our reputation, by Chris Ostoich, founder and CEO of BlackbookHR.

I must say that this is the first time I have ever considered walking away from Cincinnati. One of the things being largely ignored here, or at least largely unspoken, is the fact that this debacle is affecting our reputation in the talent ecosystem.

If we want to be considered one of the next great American cities, we need every advantage to recruit and retain the brightest people. Bright people want to build things. Bright people want to be part of a renaissance. Bright people know that they are part of building something – whether that is their career, their company or their community. Scholarly research shows that happiness at work and in life depends greatly on feeling a sense of agency. This feeling of agency and the Streetcar was strongly evidenced by the reaction received yesterday at City Hall.

Calling this project quits will, I promise you all, have lasting effect on our ability to have a real conversation with companies and/or employees about choosing Cincinnati.

But what if the new political order was built, in part, with the cooperation of those feeling left out of the equation?

GUEST EDITORIAL: Get Over It, Then Get Ready, by Don Mooney (Urban Cincy)

 ... (Mayor) Cranley is hardly the first candidate to win an election by whipping up resentment in the “neighborhoods” about spending on development “downtown”. He won’t be the last. Many politicians have built entire political careers in this town on being against stuff ...

 ... Advocates of the streetcar – and I’ve been one of them – have allowed their pet project to be painted by COAST and Chris Smitherman as a wasteful contraption designed for Chablis sipping metrosexuals, who think they are too good for the bus or the family mini-van. Can’t these precious young professionals read their iPads on the number 24, or get stuck behind a truck on the viaduct like the rest of us? Don’t take it personally. It’s just politics.

We have not sold the incredible progress downtown and in OTR, despite the great recession, as a model for other neighborhoods with their own aspirations for cool restaurants, modern transportation and rising property values. So in Price Hill and Mt. Washington, your rising neighborhood is seen as a threat to theirs, not as a sign of good things to come to our city.

Those of you with skills and no kids to tie you down can’t be blamed for bailing out now. With Cranley in the Mayor’s office and a hostile Council majority, the streetcar is on life support, and the air soon may start coming out of the downtown/OTR balloon. No doubt there are bright folks at 3CDC, dunnhumby and all those hip new branding firms with OTR addresses already tuning up their resumes.

Much to think about, isn't there?

The NewAlbanist: "And Then There Were … None?"

Admittedly, it struck me as a bit premature that Brad Bell announced his candidacy for the 2015 council race some 20 months before the primary.

In addition, there's a "once bitten, twice shy" hangover from my erstwhile newspaper column's shoddy treatment (post-primary, 2011) at the hands of the Blind Goys from Alabama.

It's also true that no one's running for anything until there's the correct election to contest. Verily, at this precise moment, I'm not running for office, although if you're interested in examining the platform from my council race in 2011, the Facebook campaign page remains up.

Clear as mud? Now, here's what the bookseller (NewAlbanist) has to say, and as always, it's quite thought-provoking. Now if you'll excuse me, there are tea leaves to be read.

And Then There Were … None? by newalbanist

At their next family reunion, if not sooner, Jeff Gahan, New Albany’s mayor, and Dan Coffey, the city’s longest-tenured city council member, will surely share a satisfied chuckle over their cooling baked beans and warming potato salad. For yet another talented and innovative New Albanian has thrown in the towel and conceded the electoral field to the reigning cabal.

My friend, Roger Baylor, seems to have literally done that. In the midst of a renewed effort on his part to simply help improve our city, Roger has been compelled to issue a caveat in conjunction with that effort – “I’m not running for office.” More on this, below.