Memo to NA's economic dishevelment cadres: "4 Qualities of a Successful Public-Private Partnership."

It's reminiscent of what happens when legislative remedies for TIF abuse are met with a determined phalanx of mayors from all known political parties, overcoming their ideological differences to focus on the commonality of their addiction to the magic funding spigot.

More on this another time.

Meanwhile, Charles Marohn's latest post at Strong Towns is introduced.

We've all been there: our local government announces a plan to fund a shiny new stadium, or a big box store, or a stretch of highway to a new block of luxury homes. And at the same time, they say how absolutely certain they are that the business who's getting the benefit will pay the city back tenfold—in jobs, in increased consumer spending, and the rest of the promises we've all heard a million times.

Sometimes, the partnership really does pay off. But too often, it's doomed from the start—and if we just asked ourselves four simple questions, we'd see how many of these silver bullet projects are really bullets we should dodge.

Today, our president Chuck Marohn walks you through the four basic qualities of successful private/public partnerships.

Your city can change the way it chooses what to fund—and it can make your community wealthier than it's ever been. But first, we need you to help us change the conversation. Can we count on you?

The article appears in truncated form below; we suggest visiting Strong Towns for the original. Graze a bit while you're there.

4 QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

... Google suggests that a "partner" is:

A person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or company with shared risks and profits.

Shared risks and profits. Most public-private partnerships are merely public handouts by a different name ... If we want to see the formation of real public-private partnerships where private businesses are truly sharing risks and profits with local governments, a few conditions must be met. Those are:

1. LIMITED AND QUANTIFIABLE RISK
... When entering into a public-private partnership, cities need to get someone disconnected from the project to give an actuarial-like assessment of the risk— and not someone who will be compensated only if the project goes forward, like a bond counsel. Risk must be quantified. And unless the risk is as limited as the private sector investment is, there is very little compelling reason to enter into an agreement.

2. MUTUAL SKIN IN THE GAME
... But at the very least, losses must be shared between partners. It is not acceptable in any public-private partnership for the local government to take on the losses while the private sector partner is able to walk away.

3. A REALISTIC CHANCE FOR A POSITIVE RETURN
... Our cities need to stop participating in projects that don't offer a solid chance at a positive return on investment. Nebulous justifications like "it will create jobs (we hope)" or "it will grow the tax base (but only over the short term)" are not good enough — not when so much money is on the table. No business would enter into a partnership which they knew they would lose them money. Local governments should not enter such partnerships either.

4. A PROPORTIONATE SHARE IN THE GAIN
... Whatever proportionate share of the risk a local government assumes, it should also be in line for a proportionate share of the gain. That's real money they should receive, not some abstract social gain that may or may not have any real, tangible value. If things go really well for the private business, they need to go really well for taxpayers as well. Share in the risk, share in the reward.

Gonder on Coyle sitecapades: "We need new rules, special rules, to guide the use of public/private partnerships."

Jeff Gahan's governing clique of down-low Reaganites will be working even harder now to unseat a dangerous dissident such as John Gonder, who actually thinks aloud, for attribution, a quality so often absent from Democratic ruling circles locally. Thanks to John for thinking, although they'll probably unseat him from Redevelopment to preclude any chance of it happening again.

What's next? Someone differing with the time-honored ritual of cash-stuffed envelopes?

By the way, did I tell you that Baylor for Mayor's theme in the Harvest Homecoming parade will be the proper use of wooden stakes and garlic cloves?

First John's link, then a prime comment.

New Rules, by John Gonder at Gonder for New Albany At-Large

... We need new rules, special rules, to guide the use of public/private partnerships ... there's a nagging voice in my head that keeps saying something about "privatizing gain while socializing loss." A hopeful voice adds a third way, "democratizing vision".

Just like always, NAC's co-editor Jeff Gillenwater summarizes the Coyle site debacle with the following incisive remark.

Partnership implies sharing risks AND rewards. That's not the case here. It rarely is in public/private "partnerships". In this case, the public has taken on over half the total investment risk while giving up any claim to profits. This development won't even contribute to our property tax base for a couple decades if it ever does. The only thing transformational here is that others in the district will be required to give up the sorts of shared, public improvements that could have been funded with the same money while facing the possibility of higher taxes themselves if the project is "successful". Ethical lapses aside, that's just a dumb investment, public or private. Good for you for having the good sense to say "no".

A Candidate’s Progress (9): It’s time to answer those River View questions.

Wouldn’t you love to see the unprecedented expenditure of $42 million, spread among dozens of small, grassroots investors, and spent across the entirety of downtown New Albany to improve, upgrade and revitalize the urban infrastructure we already have?

Of course you would, but the reality – or so we’re often told – is that the purportedly free market isn’t interested in such a dispersed and unfocused (read: unprofitable) investment in the future. Rather, it is interested in a concentrated investment on a single profit-making project, such as the one being proposed by Mainland Properties for the waterfront at River View.

Truth be told, River View isn’t exactly the free market, either. For the development to happen, the city must spend between $12 and $18 million for a parking facility and levee improvements, so as to prime the pump in a public-private partnership. Such partnerships are described by some as the wave of the future (others, like Rep. Clere, see bridge tolls as a similar “wave,” one that I earnestly hope swamps their dinghies).

Fittingly, precisely such a big-ticket project fits snugly within the parameters of a riverfront master plan written to snugly include precisely such a project. It’s Kismet, or Instant Redevelopment Karma, or something like them.

Advocates point to a stylish building at the foot of State Street as an example of public and private funding streams coming together. Yes, it has been done before – sort of.

The Horseshoe Foundation pledged money to the YMCA, the YMCA raised money of its own, the city kicked in a relatively small annual tithe, and voila! Downtown New Albany welcomed a non-profit organization that pledged to accommodate citizens of all income levels to the best of its ability. As far as can be determined, it has done so, while succeeding admirably in drawing people of all demographics to downtown.

But River View is decidedly different, not to mention a more expensive proposition for the city to help facilitate. Being a for-profit housing and retail venture, River View’s backers stress myriad future benefits to a downtown repopulated with condo dwellers, including a public plaza atop privately owned property. It also is expected that oodles of needed development will ensue in River View’s wake, presumably financed in more conventional ways without the city’s assistance.

In other words, financed in the way that almost all of downtown’s recently established new businesses were financed: Without $12 to $18 million in TIF leverage to prime their pumps – and, in fact, with very little monetary assistance at all from the city.

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I’ll readily admit that for quite some time, the River View project seemed like a no-brainer to me. Now, even if my respect for the proposed developers remains undiminished, I’m not quite as sure.

For one thing, it’s a very big move, one that dwarfs the adjacent YMCA both in complexity and the potential to impact New Albany’s epicenter for decades to come. Get it right, and downtown is forever altered … maybe even for the good. Get it wrong, and the reverse likely will be both true, and ineradicable.

I’m plagued by these growing doubts, because the last thing I want to see is for the troglodytes to win. Personally, I stubbornly nurtured the hope that a project like River View might be the massive garlic-festooned stake driven through the civic lifeblood-sucking hearts of naysayers and obstructionists.

Unfortunately, there is precious little evidence to suggest that this is a possibility.

Before I’m yet again scolded for not grasping the nature of creative financing, permit me to add that the scheme seems clear as river mud to me. It goes something like this: The city wields its TIF as a magic wand to borrow against future tax revenues in order to build a parking garage beneath the buildings that the investors cannot finance without the city’s parking garage as collateral, and in time, the city gets paid back while the developers profit from their project.

In theory, the developers make money, the city loses nothing on the transaction, downtown development is spurred to greater heights, and we all have an ideal, accessible plaza for viewing the river. More or less, that’s it, right?

There’s even the railroad track running right through the center of it, which pushes dreamers like me to envision light rail connecting downtown to IUS, and across the K & I to Louisville, thus providing a mobility solution that is dependent neither on cars, nor Kerry Stemler’s orgiastic/oligarchic whims.

Maybe … although probably not in my lifetime. Mose Putney’s drawings remind me of Holland. Sadly, this isn’t Holland.

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In the final analysis, the source of my discontent is not, as some surely believe, an eagerness to deploy my infamous contrarian tendencies “against” one or the other presumed power bases in the community, although it irks me to no end to witness the involvement of hands-off-politics entities in conceptually espousing this politically charged development, while not possessing the simple courage to conceptually denounce bridge tolls.

Rather, it’s a growing suspicion of top-down thinking in virtually all its manifestations, and a concurrent advocacy of bottom-up activism. It stems from an evolving recognition of the many thoughtful and skilled urban revolutionaries incubating grassroots innovations that empower smaller, sustainable units, and do not rely on gambles of this magnitude.

I’ve learned, I’m learning, and I will continue to learn. The more I learn, the brighter the seeming future for small economic development ball, as opposed to grandiose Hail Mary plays.

It also has me thinking back to my tenure as board member of the Urban Enterprise Association (UEA), and the success of our façade grant program. Relatively small matching grants undeniably helped to achieve a good measure of improvement within the boundaries of the zone. These matching grants could not be any more than half the total cost, but usually comprised a far smaller percentage than 40-odd percent, which $18 million would be in the case of the city’s River View TIF maneuvering.

Furthermore, dipping my toes ever so hesitantly into turgid political waters (squeamish DNA members might consider refraining from reading this paragraph), if the River View development project is everything it is touted as being, isn’t it worth the outgoing mayor’s expenditure of political capital to support the idea and alleviate escalating negative public opinion?

At the same time, if River View is not worth scattering a few farthings of lame duck political capital, what are we to conclude about its veracity?

In fact, after all is said and done, River View is not the YMCA, and the much touted merits of sparkling new office, retail and housing space in a city where plenty of them exist already, merely awaiting tender loving refurbishment, quite likely are dubious.

Consequently, our city council was right to table its April 4 resolution. It is both fitting and natural for questions to be asked, and just as important that they be answered.

There may yet be a powerfully persuasive argument in favor of recasting the TIF area to give away acreage for what might be an outstanding riverside commons area, providing a parking garage for a private developer to use as collateral to build a for-profit complex, permitting the developer to take possession of all of it when finished, and perhaps even cutting through the levee and erecting flood gates – because wouldn’t it all be worthwhile if we could see the river again?

Problem is, no one has made this powerfully persuasive argument.

There is still time on the clock. I’m listening.

A thriving (and progressive?) RiverStage in Jeffersonville, and in New Albany ... er, never mind.

Last October, NAC joined the cheering throng, knocked back a few hop-laden growlers, lassoed the oversized statue overlooking that yellow canopied namesake dome, and pulled that mother back down to room temperature.

New hope for the riverfront: Thousands gather downtown to toast Trinkle’s departure.

With his resignation ostensibly on file, and in a spirit of joyous impending Boblessness, I wrote:

Trinkle, who couldn’t find his way out of the conventional thinking box with a Saturn rocket bungeed to his back side, was undoubtedly James Garner’s single worst appointment as mayor.

Throughout his career, Trinkle has gazed in fear upon multi-generational diversity and artistic creativity and always -- always -- he has seen only encroachments and dire threats to the suffocating limitations of his own preferred monocultural milieu. Never has it occurred to him that these offer virtually limitless possibilities for circumventing the “constraints of a city budget with many priorities," which he now predictably cites as an excuse upon exiting the scene.

Trinkle's tenure on the waterfront was a pathetic failure. Perhaps, for once, the city will learn something from the experience. I, for one, am learning not to hold my breath.

And yet, we still live in New Albany. Seven months later, Trinkle’s name still adorns a slot at the city’s web site, and whether or not he’s actually still involved with administering the chronic annual disuse of the city’s waterfront, another summer of virtual nothingness beckons.

Meanwhile, just upriver, something is being done …

Jeffersonville officials hope to bring crowds out with RiverStage season, by the Tribune's David Mann

There’s going to be concerts for the adults, musicals for the kids and Willy Wonka — who has long entertained both. Those are among the events going on at Jeffersonville’s RiverStage this summer.

As New Albanians continue to sift through the underachieving rubble of the Trinkle years, we find our faces inadvertently rubbed in piquant river mud by the words of Keith Fetz, a Jeffersonville city council member who dares (!) use the "P" word without fear of being rhetorically jumped in a dark alley by New Albany’s reactionary spokesman for all things backward, Councilman Cappuccino:

“It’s pretty progressive for a city our size to have something like that,” (Fetz) said. “I just think (the RiverStage) is a huge economic development tool. It’s kind of a magnet to bring people to downtown Jeffersonville.”

At least the annual 4th of July celebration remains on the agenda.

New Albany to celebrate Fourth on the Third, by the C-J's Rick Rojas.

Fireworks over the river. Local bands performing. A summer evening of refreshments and fun. That's the checklist for a Fourth of July celebration in most places.

But not in New Albany. It all happens on July 3.

Not wanting to be overshadowed by other celebrations in the area, New Albany Mayor Doug England has planned for his city's to take place one day early.

Yes, Erika, we offer an alternative to the ongoing amphitheater malaise, and it was described in this space last summer:

Meanwhile, even in New Albany there are entrepreneurs of all generations who are willing and able to transform the amphitheater into a profitable, multi-cultural and diverse undertaking, one certainly capable of shifting income to the city rather than draining from it by being forced to subsist on a barely justifiable salary paid to one person who is completely out of touch with the demographic most sorely needed.

That'd be youth.

A better case for a public-private partnership is difficult to imagine; merely state the criteria, accept bids, award a contract, specify the percentage to be returned to the city, and permit private enterprise and a profit motive to inject life into a moribund and neglected area.

I look forward to the day when this topic is dead, because that means the riverfront is being used. Until then ... Myanmar redux.

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On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .

Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.

If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?

On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

It is often the case that seemingly unconnected occurrences, when permitted to ferment in the subconscious for a period of time, coalesce to produce thematic unity. Unfortunately, for those of us choosing to reside in New Albany, these moments of lucidity tend to be the impetus for numbing depression and hurried solace within the closest available bottle.

Then again, perhaps I’m confusing my own Pavlovian reactions with those of the populace in general, but I can explain.

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On Saturday afternoon, the trial run of a festival dubbed Worlds of Flavor Bar-B-Q and Music Festival commenced at New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater and four designated eateries downtown.

As all those involved with the festival, myself included, will openly acknowledge, Worlds of Flavor was inadequately marketed and poorly publicized; furthermore, like many inaugural events, the first time out of the gate is about learning new skills, synthesizing experiences and modifying presentations to improve the odds of success in coming years.

Make no mistake: Chief organizer Mike Kopp deserves substantial kudos for getting the ball rolling, and speaking only for myself, I’m perfectly willing to make a public pledge of more time personally expended and some of my company's money to expand and improve upon a good idea in 2008.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is an axiom with supreme relevance in this instance, if for no other reason that an absence of like-minded chutzpah has been the prime contributing factor to New Albany’s enduring malaise. I’m supremely confident that we’ll do the Worlds of Flavor fest again, and we’ll do it better each time we try.

Setting aside the specific reason why I was standing atop the levee on a relatively seasonable August afternoon listening to a jazzy musical performance, consider for a moment the favorable impression made by the grandeur of the setting: Stage, band and sloping grass in front of me, barges and pleasure craft plying the waters of the Ohio just behind the stage , the city's signature Sherman Minton bridge humming with weekend traffic, and the Louisville skyline peaking demurely over the trees on the opposite shore.

Now think of the chicken and the egg, and tell me: Do we chronically underutilize this amphitheater because there is little demand, or is there a perception of little demand because we chronically underutilize this facility?

Later Saturday night, following aperitifs at Connor’s Place, a few of us adjourned to the courtyard at Bistro New Albany, enjoying a splendid meal and the temperate evening temperatures, and indulging in relaxed conversation. Then, on Sunday morning, I prepared a double espresso, fetched the Tribune from the front steps, dipped into a breakfast of cantaloupe and poached farm-fresh eggs (as acquired from Saturday’s farmers market, preparation courtesy of Mrs. Confidential) and turned straight to the opinion page for recent college graduate and guest columnist Daniel Robison’s latest submission, “Why New Albany is losing its young people”:

One recent visitor to the region remarked that New Albany is “historic.” Well, that's true: our city’s past has some nice highlights, but emphasizing this fact to define the city's identity is exactly symptomatic of the problem: our city is stuck, not in the past per se, but in its ways, attitudes and most importantly, opportunities.

In short, it was another in a series of provocative pieces by Daniel, a talented young New Albanian who’ll probably never live here, with his spot among the ranks of locals soon to be taken by yet another itinerant tenant of our city’s unregulated rental properties, which for decades have been the chief form of “economic development” pursued by our cluelessly caretaking political and governing classes.

While Daniel and his friends could not be expected to have memorized the lengthy list of excuses for failure that older New Albanians regularly cite when pressed to explain their own generation’s apathy, it is almost certain that if any one of Daniel’s coterie were handed the keys to the Riverfront Amphitheater’s restroom along with a brief checklist explaining the venue’s rules and regulations, he would immediately commence running the facility more efficiently than the current riverfront “director,” Bob Trinkle.

It is also certain that the entertainment and activities duly booked by the Young Turks would be precisely the sort that musically and culturally are veritable light years beyond Trinkle’s strictly stodgy and past-dated tastes – and that’s the best conceivable thing that could ever happen to the city’s amphitheater at this point in time.

Trinkle’s breathtakingly underachieving tenure has produced creative energy on a par with somnalent euchre tournaments at the Mark Elrod Towers, few tangible ideas beyond those gleaned from the manual for Baptist church socials, even fewer actual events, and nothing whatsoever to indicate any enthusiasm for substantive change or any abilities or willingness to implement it. Any remuneration to the current “director” totaling more than a buck fifty is far too high, although I suspect it is much more than that, and if so, it is a pay scale that by all rights should be the stuff of pure scandal.

Meanwhile, even in New Albany there are entrepreneurs of all generations who are willing and able to transform the amphitheater into a profitable, multi-cultural and diverse undertaking, one certainly capable of shifting income to the city rather than draining from it by being forced to subsist on a barely justifiable salary paid to one person who is completely out of touch with the demographic most sorely needed.

That'd be youth.

A better case for a public-private partnership is difficult to imagine; merely state the criteria, accept bids, award a contract, specify the percentage to be returned to the city, and permit private enterprise and a profit motive to inject life into a moribund and neglected area.

Recognizing that the terms for elected members of the current mayoral administration are running down, I therefore address this question, with all due sincerity, to City Hall hopefuls Doug England and Randy Hubbard:

Can you please – please – make a pledge of action with regard to New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, arguably downtown’s single most neglected and mismanaged asset, and permit an injection of private enterprise that might reasonably be expected to dispel the do-nothing legacy of the current management?

After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained – and haven’t we all had enough of the latter?

Addendum: We’ve received an unverified report this morning that Bill Koehler, superintendent of the NA-FC Parks & Recreation Department, will submit (or has already submitted) his resignation. To repeat, this report is as yet unverified, but the source is reliable. If true, the supremely capable Koehler will be sorely missed.