Deaf Gahan's ultimate zoning bait 'n' switch: Slumlords certify themselves to be in compliance with rental property codes, then cut "thank you" checks to Gahan.

Boeing is having a bit of a problem with this notion of safety self-certification, but enough about airplanes. A few weeks ago I snapped these screenshots on social media.

Meanwhile, addressing a topic that I can't recall Deaf Gahan or his team ever once embracing publicly, Richard Florida concludes:

How Poor Americans Get Exploited by Their Landlords (CityLab)

American landlords derive more profit from renters in low-income neighborhoods, researchers Matthew Desmond and Nathan Wilmers find.

Do the poor pay more for housing?

That’s the question at the heart, and in the title, of a detailed paper published in the American Journal of Sociology on the actual housing costs paid by Americans in low-income urban neighborhoods. Its two authors, Princeton’s Matthew Desmond—who wrote the award-winning 2016 book Evicted—and MIT’s Nathan Wilmers, track the rent burdens and levels of exploitation faced by those living in concentrated poverty. They also uncover the staggeringly high profit margins made by the landlords who own properties in these areas.

It's an election year in New Albany, and I've yet to find an instance of Mayor Jeff Gahan or any sitting city council member being asked, "What ever happened to rental property inspections?

However, City Hall's flourishing propaganda division has funded Extol Magazine and other "lifestyle" publications to run ads like this.

Hmm. Weren't rental property inspections supposed to be the crucial second phase of our revised rental property ordinance?"

New Albany rental property ordinance revised, by Jenna Esarey (March 8, 2016)

NEW ALBANY — An ordinance to regulate rental properties in New Albany was amended after a contentious city council meeting Monday.

A standing-room-only crowd packed the third-floor assembly room to voice opinions about the ordinance, which required property owners to obtain a rental permit for each property and register their contact information with the city no later than Jan. 31, 2017.

Under the ordinance, a Rental Housing Code would establish minimum maintenance standards; set the responsibilities of owners, operators and occupants of rental buildings and rental units; and provide for administration, enforcement and penalties ranging up to $2,500 for repeated infractions such as failure to obtain a rental permit or violating provisions of the code. The ordinance also called for the inspection of rental housing properties based on a complaint as permitted by ordinance and state statute.

After more than two hours of discussion, Councilman Greg Phipps, who proposed the ordinance, agreed to split the ordinance, and the amended measure, containing only the registration portion, passed unanimously. The deleted provisions will be addressed at a later date. The amended ordinance faces a third reading March 17.

A committee working on the ordinance did not have rental property owners or renters as members, but a news release from New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan’s office indicated an unidentified real estate agent served as an adviser.

“I’m pleased to hear that the City of New Albany is moving forward by passing legislation to require rental registration for all rental properties within the city limits," said Gahan in a news release following the meeting. "Rental registrations and inspections have been under consideration by previous administrations and city councils for over a decade. This action is a major step toward improving living conditions for all residents and property owners in New Albany. Unfortunately, the rental property inspection component was stripped from ordinance G-15-05.”

City attorney Shane Gibson addressed a work session on the ordinance immediately before the council meeting.

“Our police and fire departments spend hours trying to track down owners when there’s a problem," he said. "Registration is the biggest aspect.”

City Building Commissioner David Brewer spoke in support of the ordinance during the work session, saying, “We’re a 200-year-old city. We’ve got buildings that deteriorate every time it rains. I deal with them every day. I’ve some of the worst of the worst.”

During the council meeting, the majority of the more than 25 residents signed up to speak expressed support for the registration of owners, but held deep concerns with other aspects, such as fines and penalties and the inspection rules.

Speakers expressed concerns about the city’s ability to handle the number of inspections called for by the ordinance, the perception of many landlords that they are being targeted while problem tenants are not being addressed and the fact that only rental properties are included.

Russell Kruer, a broker/owner with RE/MAX Results, spoke against the ordinance, citing issues he has faced in getting the city to address some concerns at properties he owns.

“I am tired of taking care of the city’s issues when they’re not taking care of mine,” he said. “I can’t get the city to return my calls.”

Sandy Hamish with Hamish Properties said her company manages over 100 properties in New Albany.

“Owners have told me they want no part of this. They will sell. Tenants have told me they’re going to move” because they don’t want their privacy invaded by an inspection.

Kindly note the three years of complete silence since the preceding was published.

To be sure, language delineating rental property inspections now exists, but it's unclear where it is and how it works. The following passage, which details a self-certification mechanism whereby rental property owners can make just like the barons of the air at Boeing, comes from Zoning Ordinance, the 238-page masterpiece produced by Gahan campaign donor 11th Street Development (and linked at the city's official site).

I was under the impression all this legalese was approved by city council last year, but not everything in it jibes when compared to the Code of Ordinances on-line, where the registration process is detailed but not the inspections.

d. Self-Certification Program.

i. Qualification. A rental housing property shall be placed in the Self-Certification Program if all the following circumstances exist:

1. After the last inspection conducted pursuant to this Section, the Code Enforcement Officer determines no violations exist on the property or violations identified were abated within thirty (30) days.

2. The Owner and Local Contact Representative comply with all applicable provisions of this Section; and

3. The Owner is not delinquent on any payment to the City of property or other taxes, fees, penalties, or any other monies related to the property.

ii. Removal from the Program. A rental housing property may be removed from the Self-Certification Program if any of the following circumstances occurs:

1. The rental housing property is in violation of this Section or any other provision of law, even if the violation is abated within thirty (30) days: or

2. Any of the circumstances set forth in Section 6.17(D)(4)(d) cease to exist.

iii. Self-Certification. Owners of rental housing properties that are in the Self-Certification Program shall certify, under penalty of perjury, that each rental housing unit on the property is in compliance with all building, housing, and sanitary codes annually by no later than January 31, and upon each change in tenancy. Self-certification shall consist of the following:

1. The Owner, or his or her designee, shall inspect all Common Elements and each unit that becomes vacant since the prior certification for compliance with the requirements of SelfCertification as provided by the City;

2. The Owner shall repair immediately any conditions necessary to achieve compliance with the Self-Certification requirements;

3. The Owner shall complete the Self-Certification documentation and submit the form to the City and to the occupants of the corresponding rental housing unit.

4. In the event any rental housing unit cannot be self-certified due to conditions of the property or an inability to repair conditions, the Owner must immediately notify the City.

iv. Random Inspections. The City may inspect rental housing properties and vacant Rental Housing Units in the Self-Certification Program on a random basis, but not more frequently than once per year.

Are Gahan's Kool-Aid drinkers on board with self-certification mechanism?

They're eager to overlook their idol's proposed gutting of public housing, while still pretending to honor the Democratic Party's commitment-in-the-breach to the community's most vulnerable.

They're eager to give a pass to the sheer inanity of David Duggins insisting his NAHA commercial property purchases on State Street are aimed at providing desperately needed extra parking for Riverview Tower, which he's just as busy depopulating.

How much gentrification and luxury enhancement can one veneer-topped mayor pursue before SOMEONE in his own party raises a timid hand and asks what he's doing to give a boost to the folks living paycheck to paycheck?

Because: if you don't pull back the curtain and see what's behind the propaganda, you're just allowing yourself to be duped, aren't you?

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 9: These west end properties and their ultimate redevelopment surely comprise a rich, albeit tangled, source of campaign finance extractions for our Genius of the Flood Plain.

Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 8: Our towing and recovery companies offer their tithes to Dear Leader.

Some people curate playlists, but during the coming weeks we'll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks -- and don't forget those air(head) sickness bags.

As a prelude to the following it bears repeating: numerous sources verify that individual Americans seldom donate to political candidates, and when they do, the amount is small. Far fewer Americans account for the bulk of campaign finance. Using $200 and above as the minimum yardstick, 0.47% of Americans account for 71% of the money being given to politicians. The remaining 29% comes from donations of less than $200.

Correspondingly, in 2011 Jeff Gahan received 36 recorded donations of $200 or less from individuals, as opposed to companies or entities. In 2018, this number fell to 16.

In 2011, Gahan's $1,000+ individual donor club was made up of only six individuals, two of whom (Jorge Lanz and Sanjay Patel) had obvious corporate tie-ins. By 2018, this number had doubled to 12 donors of at least $1,000 -- and all but one were connected directly to a municipal contract holder.

I believe the "vested interests first" trend to be discerned in Gahan's CFA-4 filings (the iceberg's visible tip) is sufficiently obvious to need no further discussion here, so let's look at three individuals/entities mentioned in a blog post from May 29, 2018:

Donor Pat Harrison owns the "defiled" impound lot, so we're witnessing artfully scripted (and remunerative) outrage from Dear Leader.

Bennett's Towing: (detailed in the previous installment) = $7,000

Pat Harrison: 310 (2011) + 1,000 (2015) + 500 (2018) = $1,810

Jeff Eastridge/CCE: 2,500 (2015) + 3,000 (2016) = $5,500

Let's flip back to this blog post from 2018, repeated in its entirety.

When one stops to consider these various realities: the blighted impound lot, Harrison's citywide rental properties, the disappearance from the civic agenda of rental property inspection, the towing company property, the way Gahan acquired the former QRC land (the sewer utility of which he is president coyly purchased it under the guise of future wastewater facility expansion) and the need for even more public money to convert QRC into grandiose parkland ... then consider the imperative of Gahan remaining in office to coordinate the spider web of skullduggery ... it's very clear that when it comes to toxicity in New Albany, a few tons of coal ash might be the least of our concerns.

---

MAY 29, 2018

It happened that last week, renowned local realtor and rental property owner Pat Harrison's name was dropped within the Courier Journal's coverage of Floyd County's surreptitious cinder/coal ash disposal.

Following up: "An Indiana county is paying a steep price for burying toxic coal ash." That's us, folks.

Since 1998 Harrison has been the owner of the land off IN-111, upon which the impound lot began operations in 2009.

More, recently, when the decade-old coal ash poo hit the fan, Mayor Jeff Gahan promptly utilized Harrison's property as a stage prop in another political grandstand play, in the process indiscriminately blaming his own political party members in county government for polluting a patch -- and under the bus they merrily went, rolling and tumbling.

Odd, but Jeff Gahan uses "his" city government Facebook page to attack fellow DemoDisneyDixiecrat Chuck Freiberger for illegal coal ash dumping.

(Note to Democratic Party members: Even YOU aren't safe from the megalomania. Unless you're called Warren Nash, your turn at the show trial is coming so long as Dear Leader reckons the sacrifice will benefit him.)

From Grace Schneider's CJ coverage about the coal ash disposal:

In late 2008, Floyd’s highway department had a huge black mound at its works yard on Ind. 64 in Georgetown, hauled there for free from University of Louisville Hospital's coal plant near downtown Louisville. In rainy weather, black residue washed off the pile and into a nearby creek, so the county was told to get rid of the stockpile, former highway superintendent Ron Quakenbush said.

A few neighboring counties came and took truckloads, then more went to C.C.E., a contractor grading land on Ind. 111 in New Albany for real estate agent and owner Pat Harrison.

By the way, C.C.E.'s Jeff Eastridge, himself once beset by continuous allegations of polluting, flipped the land for Silver Street Park to NA several years ago. He then hopped aboard Team Gahan's "preferred contractor" list.

Another Gahan campaign donor, Bennett's Towing, obviously services the impound lot along with other wrecker companies.

To Gahan campaign , 2015.

To Gahan campaign, 2017.

Ah, but perhaps Bennett's is on the donor list because it occupies desired property adjacent to the future city parks department unit by the river, more land to be taken off the tax rolls, which currently is owned by the heirs of QRC Recycling's founder Tim Janson, who died last year.

This $2.5 million parkland acquisition is supposed to be finalized any day now, and it has been long rumored that the city would use the opportunity to buy out Bennett's, just as long as the overheated bunker printing press keeps churning out Ben Franklins. 

Getting back to coal ash and the impound lot, the Green Mouse reports that Harrison is standing firm in the face of pressure from the county's operatives.

Seems Harrison will not sign the letter Floyd County's legal counsel wants her to sign before they'll clean up the impound lot. They want her to say she knew what was being dumped on her land. But she didn't know. She has a good case and a lawyer. You think they'd be smarter then that.

Given the caliber of the operatives involved in the coal ash disposal operation, whose fictional equivalents worked with Mr. Haney on television's Green Acres, it certainly seems possible that Harrison knew nothing about it.

There's isn't any way of knowing, so let's go back in time to recall a far juicier topic, in March of 2016, when Harrison surprisingly threw her community pillar's weight behind Gahan's tepid rental property registration ordinance.

Given Harrison's past characterization of even the most milquetoast of rental property reform ideas as emanating from Nazi stormtroopers (or as intentionally misspelled, Stromtroopers), the city council gallery was shocked to hear her singing the praises of Dear Leader.

Except perhaps it makes sense, after all. There's this:

2015.

And, in addition, nothing further has occurred since 2016 to encourage the alleged second step of inspecting rental properties -- and neither will it, seeing as we're less than a year away from the 2018 primaries. I'd say Harrison lost a battle to win the war.

Gahan's not touching inspections unless the AdamBot comes up with evidence it might further the prospects for his re-election campaign, and the mayor can count on the usual Sycophantic Shuffle, with council members like Phipps and Caesar remaining mum if directed by Big Daddy G.

In retrospect, Harrison's 2016 rental registration arc likely was telegraphed well in advance, and there's no reason to doubt she's reading from Gahan's coal ash script again in 2018, when any conceivable points to be scored by the otherwise environmentally disinterested Gahan will be coming straight from the hide of future mayoral candidate (and current commissioner) Mark Seabrook.

Scoring political points and lubricating them with campaign finance grease?

That's something the Genius of the Flood Plain can really get behind.

Related:

March 8, 2016 Analysis: Gahan and the rental ordinance, or the emasculation of the once-powerful Oz.

As time merits, there'll be more to say about last evening's council epic, but for the moment a few plain facts should suffice.

On Monday morning, for the first time in 50 months as mayor, Mayor Jeff Gahan timorously placed a quivering toe in the water, and the minimum required number of chips on the table, and released an awkward statement in support of rental property registration, inspection and enforcement -- something he had studiously avoided mentioning throughout his 2015 campaign for re-election.

BOMBSHELL: Citywide confusion as Mayor Jeff Gahan is abducted by space alien impostor, who promptly takes public "pro" stand on rental property ordinance.

Once the council meeting began, shepherds in far-off Patagonia felt the seismic shock when Pat Harrison, inveterate opponent of such intrusive measures, not only endorsed the rental property ordinance and appealed to the many rental owners in the room to unite around it, but refrained from using the word "Gestapo" for the first time in living memory.

Pat Harrison's Slumlord Uprising of 2008, 6/6: "Endangered Slumlord Protection Act? Local rental property mogul and realtor cites a 'pitiful' absence of tax breaks."

The rental owners responded by gazing upon the figure of Harrison much in the fashion of Trump rally attendees when the lone minority protester dares speak apostasy aloud, and set about angrily voicing their perennial objections to being compelled to follow the same general regulations as the remainder of the city's business community.

An hour and a half later, after a brief diversion to New Albany's never-ending stormwater drainage problems (also never mentioned during last year's campaign), it came time for the mayor to speak.

Of course, such was the epochal importance of the occasion -- Gahan referred to the rental ordinance as a "must" --  that the mayor yet again failed to attend, thus missing the chance to confront dissenting property owners face to face, and sending customary surrogate Mike Hall in his stead. Hall read the mayor's statement, which he likely wrote in the first place. Proponents surely felt deflated. If not now, when?

---

#FireGahan2019

Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.


Next: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 10: Oh Cripe! Or, the path from Al "Indy" Oak's company PAC leads to Silver Street Park and Breakwater, and probably others.

Jeff Gahan's Money Machine: Donor Pat Harrison owns the "defiled" impound lot, so we're witnessing artfully scripted (and remunerative) outrage from Dear Leader.

Far fetched?

Maybe. The Green Mouse takes what he can get. At the same time, with all the cash changing hands, perhaps Occam's Razor is right, and the simpler answer is better: the joys of public service are a stretch, so it's all about the money.

It happened that last week, renowned local realtor and rental property owner Pat Harrison's name was dropped within the Courier Journal's coverage of Floyd County's surreptitious cinder/coal ash disposal.

Following up: "An Indiana county is paying a steep price for burying toxic coal ash." That's us, folks.

Since 1998 Harrison has been the owner of the land off IN-111, upon which the impound lot began operations in 2009.

More, recently, when the decade-old coal ash poo hit the fan, Mayor Jeff Gahan promptly utilized Harrison's property as a stage prop in another political grandstand play, in the process indiscriminately blaming his own political party members in county government for polluting a patch -- and under the bus they merrily went, rolling and tumbling.

Odd, but Jeff Gahan uses "his" city government Facebook page to attack fellow DemoDisneyDixiecrat Chuck Freiberger for illegal coal ash dumping.

(Note to Democratic Party members: Even YOU aren't safe from the megalomania. Unless you're called Warren Nash, your turn at the show trial is coming so long as Dear Leader reckons the sacrifice will benefit him.)

From Grace Schneider's CJ coverage about the coal ash disposal:

In late 2008, Floyd’s highway department had a huge black mound at its works yard on Ind. 64 in Georgetown, hauled there for free from University of Louisville Hospital's coal plant near downtown Louisville. In rainy weather, black residue washed off the pile and into a nearby creek, so the county was told to get rid of the stockpile, former highway superintendent Ron Quakenbush said.

A few neighboring counties came and took truckloads, then more went to C.C.E., a contractor grading land on Ind. 111 in New Albany for real estate agent and owner Pat Harrison.

By the way, C.C.E.'s Jeff Eastridge, himself once beset by continuous allegations of polluting, flipped the land for Silver Street Park to NA several years ago. He then hopped aboard Team Gahan's "preferred contractor" list.

Another Gahan campaign donor, Bennett's Towing, obviously services the impound lot along with other wrecker companies. 

To Gahan campaign , 2015.

To Gahan campaign, 2017.

Ah, but perhaps Bennett's is on the donor list because it occupies desired property adjacent to the future city parks department unit by the river, more land to be taken off the tax rolls, which currently is owned by the heirs of QRC Recycling's founder Tim Janson, who died last year.

This $2.5 million parkland acquisition is supposed to be finalized any day now, and it has been long rumored that the city would use the opportunity to buy out Bennett's, just as long as the overheated bunker printing press keeps churning out Ben Franklins. 

Getting back to coal ash and the impound lot, the Green Mouse reports that Harrison is standing firm in the face of pressure from the county's operatives.

Seems Harrison will not sign the letter Floyd County's legal counsel wants her to sign before they'll clean up the impound lot. They want her to say she knew what was being dumped on her land. But she didn't know. She has a good case and a lawyer. You think they'd be smarter then that.

Given the caliber of the operatives involved in the coal ash disposal operation, whose fictional equivalents worked with Mr. Haney on television's Green Acres, it certainly seems possible that Harrison knew nothing about it. 

There's isn't any way of knowing, so let's go back in time to recall a far juicier topic, in March of 2016, when Harrison surprisingly threw her community pillar's weight behind Gahan's tepid rental property registration ordinance.

Given Harrison's past characterization of even the most milquetoast of rental property reform ideas as emanating from Nazi stormtroopers (or as intentionally misspelled, Stromtroopers), the city council gallery was shocked to hear her singing the praises of Dear Leader.

Except perhaps it makes sense, after all. There's this:

2015.

And, in addition, nothing further has occurred since 2016 to encourage the alleged second step of inspecting rental properties -- and neither will it, seeing as we're less than a year away from the 2018 primaries. I'd say Harrison lost a battle to win the war.

Gahan's not touching inspections unless the AdamBot comes up with evidence it might further the prospects for his re-election campaign, and the mayor can count on the usual Sycophantic Shuffle, with council members like Phipps and Caesar remaining mum if directed by Big Daddy G.

In retrospect, Harrison's 2016 rental registration arc likely was telegraphed well in advance, and there's no reason to doubt she's reading from Gahan's coal ash script again in 2018, when any conceivable points to be scored by the otherwise environmentally disinterested Gahan will be coming straight from the hide of future mayoral candidate (and current commissioner) Mark Seabrook. 

Scoring political points and lubricating them with campaign finance grease?

That's something the Genius of the Flood Plain can really get behind. 

---

March 8, 2016 Analysis: Gahan and the rental ordinance, or the emasculation of the once-powerful Oz.

As time merits, there'll be more to say about last evening's council epic, but for the moment a few plain facts should suffice.

On Monday morning, for the first time in 50 months as mayor, Mayor Jeff Gahan timorously placed a quivering toe in the water, and the minimum required number of chips on the table, and released an awkward statement in support of rental property registration, inspection and enforcement -- something he had studiously avoided mentioning throughout his 2015 campaign for re-election.

BOMBSHELL: Citywide confusion as Mayor Jeff Gahan is abducted by space alien impostor, who promptly takes public "pro" stand on rental property ordinance.

Once the council meeting began, shepherds in far-off Patagonia felt the seismic shock when Pat Harrison, inveterate opponent of such intrusive measures, not only endorsed the rental property ordinance and appealed to the many rental owners in the room to unite around it, but refrained from using the word "Gestapo" for the first time in living memory.

Pat Harrison's Slumlord Uprising of 2008, 6/6: "Endangered Slumlord Protection Act? Local rental property mogul and realtor cites a 'pitiful' absence of tax breaks."

The rental owners responded by gazing upon the figure of Harrison much in the fashion of Trump rally attendees when the lone minority protester dares speak apostasy aloud, and set about angrily voicing their perennial objections to being compelled to follow the same general regulations as the remainder of the city's business community.

An hour and a half later, after a brief diversion to New Albany's never-ending stormwater drainage problems (also never mentioned during last year's campaign), it came time for the mayor to speak.

Of course, such was the epochal importance of the occasion -- Gahan referred to the rental ordinance as a "must" --  that the mayor yet again failed to attend, thus missing the chance to confront dissenting property owners face to face, and sending customary surrogate Mike Hall in his stead. Hall read the mayor's statement, which he likely wrote in the first place. Proponents surely felt deflated. If not now, when?

Airbnb in Nawbany: To tax or not to tax?

My Main Street neighbor Josh Pavey and councilman Al Knable provide talking points in the video, which you can view by following the link.

If the deity is to be thanked for small favors, here's one: Bob Caesar does not appear.

Since no one asked me, I'll offer this hint to those in favor of regulating and taxing Airbnb properties: You do not want Bob Caesar as your spokesman.

You're welcome and can buy me a beer some day.

New Albany officials weighing pros and cons of Airbnb regulations, by Chris Sutter (WDRB 41)

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB)-- Josh Pavey's grandmother just got done with a big facelift to her classic home on New Albany's mansion row.

"She just recently repainted the entire outside of her house, redid the facade, the woodwork," he said.

She's been able to do it because of the extra money she's bringing in after opening her doors to visitors. Her home is an Airbnb.

"It's been a huge asset to her," Pavey said about his grandmother.

She's part of a growing trend in New Albany. A new spot in the southern Indiana city seems to pop up on Airbnb.com daily. The winds of change don't go unnoticed by lawmakers. Talk is beginning about how to properly regulate the new businesses.

"I'd like for there to be discussion from the public, public input, about what they want their neighborhoods to look like," said City Councilman Al Knable.

He's decided to get the conversation started.

Breathlessness begets toothlessness as rental property registration begins tomorrow.

Bring out yer slumlords!

The self-congratulatory boilerplate begins in three ... two ... one ...

---

Official News and Information about the City of New Albany directly from the Mayor's office. You can also keep up with our full calendar of events by clicking HERE.

Rental Registration Program to Begin December 5th

December 01, 2016

Earlier this year, Mayor Jeff Gahan and Building Commissioner David Brewer urged the City Council to pass a rental registration program that requires landlords to register any properties within the city limits that will be rented to tenants. The Rental Housing Ordinance will increase communication that will help prevent the deterioration of residential housing, assist in compliance of minimum rental housing standards, improve safety for residents, protect the character and stability of residential neighborhoods, and preserve and increase property values throughout the city.

For more information about this history of this ordinance, please see here: http://newalbanycityhall.com/home/2016/3/7/rental-housing-ordinance-a-must-for-new-albany

To view the Rental Housing Registration Ordinance, please click HERE.

Rental Property Registration will begin on Monday December 5th. All landlords within the city will have until January 31st, 2017 to register their properties.

>> Click Here for a Rental Property Registration Form <<

To register a property, please download and complete the form (linked HERE). After completing the form, you can mail the form in or turn it in at the City-County Building. A registration fee of $5.00 will be applied per rental address/parcel.

To mail in your completed rental registration form, please send both the form and $5.00 registration fee (checks only) to:

City of New Albany Building Department
311 Hauss Square, Rm. #329
New Albany, IN 47150

To e-mail your completed application, please send it to RentalRegistration@cityofnewalbany.com

If an application is e-mailed, you will still need to pay your registration fee either in person or through the mail.

203 years later, New Albany has a rental property registration ordinance. Expect inspection and enforcement to follow, circa 2219.

Last evening's city council took place against a backdrop of St. Paddy's (NOT PATTY'S) Day carousing and NCAA athlete exploitation bracketeering.

From the standpoint of local journalism, events of equally critical importance were occurring elsewhere, including a self-aggrandizing One Southern Indiana awards ceremony and a reality television show about a jail.

Somewhere, there may have been a cooking class.

Council meeting attendance was down drastically compared with the highly entertaining rental property owner apocalypse last Monday, proving yet again that absent proper marketing, our legislative body simply cannot put butts in seats.

Maybe our council needs a Bobblehead night.

When the final gavel sounded, the meeting room emptied faster than a flagon of Bud Light Lime at a Democratic Party fluff-a-thon, but at least a few items of business were accomplished.

Thornton's can build a shiny new memorial to auto-centrism on State Street, the plans for which were chillingly referred to by Bob Caesar as "nice."

Oh yes, and for the first time in the city's history, rental properties will be registered.

Expect the real struggle to begin now, as the usual suspects seek to retard or eliminate any meaningful enforcement mechanism.

ON THE AVENUES: A funny thing happened on the way to a city council nightcap.

ON THE AVENUES: A funny thing happened on the way to a city council nightcap.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

At Monday evening’s city council meeting, something genuinely rare occurred. I’d previously witnessed it only when the topic at hand was inconsequential, one of insufficient gravity to demand one and a half hours of public speaking time.

Before I get to it, an overview.

At stake was the “Ordinance Adopting Chapter 160: Rental Property Code,” and even before the meeting was gaveled to order, the proposed legislation already had induced labor pains of a profound dimension.

Not only did our chronically reticent Mayor Jeff Gahan shed his diffidence to issue a statement strongly urging the ordinance’s passage, but local realtor Pat Harrison entirely refrained from self-immolation. Discarding her torn and frayed “Gestapo!” card, she testified on behalf of the measure, and urged all citizens in attendance to join her.

Dozens of Harrison’s fellow rental property owners who were packing the meeting room greeted this unexpected declaration of Kumbaya with hard-bitten shrugs. You could almost read their minds: “Well, looks like Gahan tricked Pat into swallowing the Kool-Aid. She’s dead to us now. Who is John Galt?”

He owns a duplex, right?

Harrison kept her front-row seat for the remainder of the meeting, listening as a succession of rental property owners savagely denounced the ordinance, both in terms of its specific contents and from their traditional standpoint that yet again, City Hall was refusing to build consensus, and attempting instead to “railroad” them into compliance.

They may have had something there.

---

Strangely, some elements of what followed did not precisely adhere to the time-honored cadence, as stipulating that area residents attend council meetings only when mad-as-hell-outraged, better to simmer ominously while heckling cowered office-holders with implied threats of electoral jihad, and fighting to the bitter end.

Not that such sideshows didn’t break out. Of course they did. However, there were significant departures from the script.

For one thing, the electoral comeuppance artillery more accurately resembled a brace of damp July 4 sparklers. Even Tibetan monks in far-off Llasa immediately grasped that the introduction of the rental property ordinance was timed to take place following the 2015 elections, not before.

Council persons would have four long years for short attention spans to take their toll in forgetfulness.

Furthermore, as required by council protocol to state their addresses, a disproportionate number of property owners in attendance were revealed to live beyond New Albany’s city limits, in locales ranging from Sellersburg to Shepherdsville. Ironically, many of the property owners cannot vote here – and many of their tenants won’t.

As the parade to the lectern dragged on, it became apparent that most (not all) property owners present were willing to accept the section of the ordinance establishing a property registration regimen, financed with a modest fee.

It is impossible to say whether this acceptance constituted a conscious bargaining chip, but it was evident that however minimal, collective agreement might be possible on at least one point.

But was half a loaf Gahan’s strategy from the start? People close to the central characters in this story will tell you that while Gahan’s true beliefs can seldom be fathomed, ordinance sponsor Greg Phipps supports it top to bottom.

Was the true believer Phipps intended as the feint, the lightning rod, and the diversion, with his amoral mayoral benefactor all the while channeling cartoonish his inner Machiavellian by assembling the whole nattily attired City Hall gang (good grief, even Duggins was wearing a suit) just for show, all the while content to play for registration alone?

In the end, that’s what Phipps got, a rental registration rump alone, but with an added “something” that Gahan may or may not have been aiming toward, because more than one council member hinted at broad support for the notion of at long last adequately funding the city’s existing enforcement mechanism (read: David Brewer) … and if rental registration is accompanied by serious funding to enforce the ordinances already on the books, what’s the point of bringing back the most recent rental package from the committee’s chopping block?

Do you hear that? It sounds like a toilet flushing.

---

It came time for Gahan to speak, and bears repeating that such was the urgency of the occasion – Gahan’s morning emission referred to the rental ordinance as a "must" – that yet again, for perhaps the 99th time out of 101 council meetings since 2012, the mayor failed to attend and make his own argument, face to face with dissenting property owners.

As always, the mayor’s platitudes were mouthed by his surrogate, Mike Hall, who likely wrote them in the first place. This revealing episode concluded, finally the council's own discussion began.

After a passionate four-year fling with Gahan, Dan Coffey has returned to a practiced demagogue’s numbing predictability, playing directly to the crowd’s prejudices, biting heads off live pigeons and vowing that yes, praise God, “Free Bird” would be played whether the pointy-headed liberals wanted to hear it or not.

Coffey’s fellow “independent” is Scott Blair, and if the oddity of this couple doesn’t send you to the liquor cabinet, nothing will. Both now compete among the two major parties for scraps of influence, and of the two, Coffey is best placed to snatch them from the banker’s smooth, perfumed hands.

Blair already is showing signs of desperation; each time he publicly uses words like “cost-benefit ratio,” “spread sheets” and “free toaster oven with each new checking account,” what he’s really asking is, “Why don’t any of you love me?”

Of course, Coffey the snarling junkyard dog reads the abacus more clearly than the MBA Blair, because the council’s new math reads like this: Four DemoDixieDisneycrats, three spanking new Republicans and two Free Agents – and Coffey’s decision to opt out from the Party of Them Gays owed to pure calculation, not pique.

You see, Coffey’s erstwhile paymaster, Jeff Gahan, now is utterly deprived of painless, easy victory during those sporadic occasions when a council vote cannot be evaded by decisions taken by his handpicked boards of Works and Redevelopment.

Coffey knows there’ll come a time when that reliable council swing vote is once again needed. His price will be higher than before, but Gahan will pay it, for the simple reason that he’d rather deal with a Copperhead than a Loan Officer – and bizarrely, this comes very close to making sense.

---

On Monday night, with council discussion concluded, there was an atmosphere of uncertainty. Phipps had performed well, addressing objections to the ordinance and providing the mayor with more political cover than he ever receives in return.

He vowed to bring the entire 22-page document to vote, with no further tabling or committee involvement, and yet had barely finished the sentence before divining a very important fact.

Phipps didn’t have five votes. He may have had as few as two. Now what?

At this precise moment, Phipps asked aloud what might be done to move matters forward, and he was answered by hyper-prepared, at-large newcomer Al Knable, who matter-of-factly stated that while he supported the registration portion, he could not vote for the remainder of the rental ordinance without it first going back to committee for revision.

As though released from bondage, others chimed in, and suddenly, the rare event I referred to at the top of this page unfolded.

Council members actually spoke to each other with civility, even Coffey.

They spoke openly, and talked about separating the ordinance’s sections, reconstituting it, resubmitting it, and voting.

They discussed approving rental property registration, then coming back to the inspection and enforcement sections.

They voted, and registration was approved unanimously on the first two readings. Surely it will receive final approval at the next meeting.

After this, most attendees quickly vacated the room. They left having witnessed a rare compromise, and while proponent and opponent alike may not have been delighted, they also were not homicidal. Given the council’s perennial shenanigans, that’s something encouraging.

Phipps’ question and Knable’s answer might well have been the start of a new council dynamic. Currently there are two natural leaders on this council: Knable and Coffey, and Coffey has traded his vitality for the hope of a future lottery win.

I expect Knable to pursue bipartisan conciliation for as long as Gahan’s rampant ego will allow, and in turn, I see Gahan observing the stock dictum of holding friends close, but enemies even closer.

As for where this prolonged, delicate gavotte takes us, no one can know for sure. All I can say is for the first time in many a moon, I returned home from a council meeting relatively relaxed, and fell asleep quickly, without so much as gin to silence my brain.

These are strange times, indeed – and maybe even hopeful ones.

---

March 3: ON THE AVENUES: Since 1960, outside looking in.

February 29: ON THE AVENUES REPRISE: Die hard the Hunter, or the political "impossibility" of rental property registration in New Albany (2015).

February 25: ON THE AVENUES: Gravity Head again, because times change, and possessive pronouns change with them.

February 18: ON THE AVENUES: Mourning in America, circa 1984.

Analysis: Gahan and the rental ordinance, or the emasculation of the once-powerful Oz.

Hit suit, win sign.

As time merits, there'll be more to say about last evening's council epic, but for the moment a few plain facts should suffice.

On Monday morning, for the first time in 50 months as mayor, Mayor Jeff Gahan timorously placed a quivering toe in the water, and the minimum required number of chips on the table, and released an awkward statement in support of rental property registration, inspection and enforcement -- something he had studiously avoided mentioning throughout his 2015 campaign for re-election.

BOMBSHELL: Citywide confusion as Mayor Jeff Gahan is abducted by space alien impostor, who promptly takes public "pro" stand on rental property ordinance.

Once the council meeting began, shepherds in far-off Patagonia felt the seismic shock when Pat Harrison, inveterate opponent of such intrusive measures, not only endorsed the rental property ordinance and appealed to the many rental owners in the room to unite around it, but refrained from using the word "Gestapo" for the first time in living memory.

Pat Harrison's Slumlord Uprising of 2008, 6/6: "Endangered Slumlord Protection Act? Local rental property mogul and realtor cites a 'pitiful' absence of tax breaks."

The rental owners responded by gazing upon the figure of Harrison much in the fashion of Trump rally attendees when the lone minority protester dares speak apostasy aloud, and set about angrily voicing their perennial objections to being compelled to follow the same general regulations as the remainder of the city's business community.

An hour and a half later, after a brief diversion to New Albany's never-ending stormwater drainage problems (also never mentioned during last year's campaign), it came time for the mayor to speak.

Of course, such was the epochal importance of the occasion -- Gahan referred to the rental ordinance as a "must" --  that the mayor yet again failed to attend, thus missing the chance to confront dissenting property owners face to face, and sending customary surrogate Mike Hall in his stead. Hall read the mayor's statement, which he likely wrote in the first place. Proponents surely felt deflated. If not now, when?

The council's own discussion began, with Dan Coffey predictably tossing red meat to the crowd, Scott Blair making gurgling sounds about spread sheets, and Greg Phipps defending his (read: the mayor's) ordinance with the common sense suggestion that as with other businesses, if they're not profitable, perhaps the business owner should seek a new line of work.

Subsequently, it became clear why Gahan bothered to so much as commission a statement on his strange new "New Albany City Hall" web site, even if deigning to appear before council and citizens constituted an onerous chore.

It's because the council's new math has deprived Gahan of painless, easy victory when a vote cannot be evaded. For 12 years, there have been eight Democrats and one Republican. During Gahan's first term, those eight Democrats were as pliable on the mayor's behalf as the Supreme Soviet was for Uncle Joe or Comrade Nikita. For four years, Gahan sought to rule by closeted writ, but always could rely upon a servile council rubber stamp when desired ... when responsibility needed to be shared.

Those days are gone. Blair and Coffey comprise a vacuous, unprincipled "you-pay, we-vote" rump that should not be honored by use of the word "independent." There are three Republicans, and Al Knable is a particularly prepared and formidable seeker of bipartisan input.

This leaves only four reliable DemoDisneyDixiecrats, none of whom are natural leaders, all of whom formed a rote line when Gahan finally ventured from his down-low bunker with yesterday's public statement ...  except that it takes five votes.

Phipps didn't have them.

Consequently, the Thanksgiving turkey (the rental ordinance, not Duggins) set about being carved. The result was a compromise: The registration component was separated from the teeth of inspection and enforcement, and this rump was approved unanimously for the first two readings. Inspection and enforcement sections now will return to committee, where the teeth will be vigorously filed down to  mimic gently sloping, loosely fitted dentures.

That even this much was approved probably owes to the many rental property owners conceding openly to living elsewhere, from Scott County, Indiana to Shepherdsville, Kentucky.

After all, foreigners don't vote.

In the end, Monday night represented much ado about precious little. However, something a bit different has been born. In 2015, Gahan lost 13 points off his mayoral margin, and when Coffey went rogue, the council dynamic shifted. Will the mayor accede to Coffey's terms and grease him back inside the tent, where he can resume pissing out of it from the inside? Will he bite his tongue and negotiate with scrubbed and perfumed corporate fetishist Blair? Or, will City Hall double down on government by appointed committee, i.e., redevelopment and the board of works?

That reminds me: Gin.

Must buy more gin.

BOMBSHELL: Citywide confusion as Mayor Jeff Gahan is abducted by space alien impostor, who promptly takes public "pro" stand on rental property ordinance.

In 50 months as mayor, Jeff Gahan has not reached into his wallet to expend political capital.

Not  once.

Although NAC has been asking since December, prior to today Gahan has given no public indication of his stance on the rental property ordinance -- either way, yea or nay.

Why now?

Is it because he doesn't have the votes? Is it because he does, and is acting to claim full credit? If success depends on Republican votes, is there a payback (i.e., weakened street reform)?

Will Gahan attend tonight's meeting and face disgruntled property owners -- or was the deal fixed when he had lunch with Pat Harrison last week?

So many questions, so few martinis.

What's the catch?

---

"Rental Housing Ordinance a Must for New Albany" - Mayor Gahan

Working with my staff and other city council members, New Albany City Councilman Greg Phipps will introduce G-15-05, Ordinance Adopting Chapter 160: Rental Housing Code at the regularly scheduled Council meeting on Monday, March 7, 2016. The purpose of the ordinance is to provide for the registration and inspection of rental residential property within the city.

The Rental Housing ordinance will help facilitate in the prevention of deterioration of residential housing, assist in compliance of minimum rental housing standards to improve safety for residents, protect the character and stability of residential neighborhoods, and preserve and increase property values throughout the City. This ordinance continues my administration’s focus on Quality of Place initiatives regarding the business of residency, while focusing on four main goals:

1. Increased Safety for tenants and surrounding properties
2. Improved Cleanliness
3. Historic Preservation
4. Increased property values

By improving and maintaining our housing stock, in addition to quality of life initiatives like strong schools and parks, our entire community becomes a more attractive place for private investment of money, time, energy, and enthusiasm.

The ordinance has two major components which will assist in accomplishing the goals outlined.

1. Registration of any property in the city which will be rented to tenants
The registration process will require the owner to obtain a rental permit for each property and supply current contact information of the owner to the City. This will allow the appropriate city officials to immediately contact a rental housing owner of any potential violations or issues with the property should they arise. The registration will facilitate the timeliness and ability of the City to work with owners to address or fix any issues that may exist.

2. Inspection of rental housing properties
All rental housing properties may be subject to an annual inspection or inspection based upon a complaint as permitted by ordinance and state statute.

The Rental Housing Ordinance will immediately be of benefit to the community, residents, tenants, and rental property owners.

We are committed to improving the residential experience for those who have long ago decided to make New Albany their home, as well as those people who are determined to find a great new place to live and grow.

Jeff Gahan

Planning on attending Monday night's council meeting? Here are a few things you should know.

You can read the proposed rental property ordinance in its entirety here: The complete PDF: "Ordinance Adopting Chapter 160: Rental Property Code," for your reading pleasure.

Greg Roberts has renewed his call:

Council Meeting Tomorrow Night ... March 7th @ 7:00 pm ... 3rd floor of the City/County Building.

First and Second Reading on the New Rental Inspection Ordinance

We all need to be there to speak and show our support for this critical ordinance that will directly benefit our neighborhood!

Please spread the word and show up!

For those readers planning to attend (for, against or desirous of free quality entertainment) and who are not familiar with the workings of city council:

1. For an ordinance to be approved, it must pass three readings. The first and second occur simultaneously. For this ordinance to be approved, there'll have to be a third reading at the meeting on March 17 (that's right; St. Patrick's Day).

2. As noted, the meeting is held on the 3rd floor of the City County Building, in the meeting room opposite the elevator -- and there is a security screening to get in the building, so leave Swiss Army Knives at home. Once I lost a cigar cutter this way.

3. Monday night's meeting is going to be very crowded. The room just might hold 50 semi-comfortably, so get there early if possible.

4. If you wish to speak about the rental property ordinance, you must sign up. There'll be two sheets at the lectern. Place your name on the one asking for public comments on agenda items. If you sign by mistake on the non-agenda sheet, your turn won't come until the very end of the meeting, after the vote has been taken.

5. Finally, given the number of citizens wanting to speak, the president probably will limit comments to two, maybe three minutes.

I'll be live-tweeting: @newalbanian, hash tag #nacouncil

The complete PDF: "Ordinance Adopting Chapter 160: Rental Property Code," for your reading pleasure.

Below is the entire 22-page PDF file of the proposed ordinance.

You also can read it here.

Roger tried to obtain this file in Word format, but was informed by the city clerk that this cannot be done; agendas and minutes are in Word, but everything else is PDF.

For background, the most recent newspaper story:

New Albany councilman plans to bring back rental property item March 7, by Jerod Clapp

Vice-President Greg Phipps said he’ll have his rental property registration ordinance back for a final vote at the council’s March 7 meeting. He said a committee working on the ordinance will not have rental property owners or renters as members, but that the committee has used real estate agents as advisers.

Greg Roberts' call to the east Spring Street Neighborhood Association:

Rental property ordinance: "Very Important City Council Meeting (March 7th)."

The slumlords/landlords will be there in force to speak against this program. so we need to be there in force as home owners to be speak for this program and to protect our investments!

NAC's series on Pat Harrison's proclivity for incorrect but jack-booted usage:

Pat Harrison's Slumlord Uprising of 2008, 6/6: "Endangered Slumlord Protection Act? Local rental property mogul and realtor cites a 'pitiful' absence of tax breaks."

Eight years later, and it's déjà vu all over again as Pat Harrison prepares to defend our downtrodden slumlords against the Gestapo.

Finally, Roger's recent column on the topic:

ON THE AVENUES REPRISE: Die hard the Hunter, or the political "impossibility" of rental property registration in New Albany (2015).

Nine years passed, NOTHING achieved. You're forgiven for questioning how New Albany's political caste, comprised primarily of politicians identifying themselves as Democrats, manages the feat of sleeping at night. But you see, vampires -- they're both dead and undead, right?

Conscience doesn't factor into it ... does it?

Big thanks to Jeff Gillenwater for the heavy lifting.

ON THE AVENUES REPRISE: Die hard the Hunter, or the political "impossibility" of rental property registration in New Albany (2015).

Earlier this morning: Pat Harrison's Enduring Gestapo Fetish in Six (6) Easy Pieces.

My column (below) was published on March 12, 2015, just shy of one year ago. It ties up a few loose ends with regard to Harrison's Slumlord Uprising of 2008, but far more than, with the issue about to come bubbling to the surface yet again, this  morning's posts reinforce the salient point of New Albany's record of rental property registration and code enforcement since 2007:

Nine years passed, NOTHING achieved.  

You're forgiven for questioning how New Albany's political caste, comprised primarily of politicians identifying themselves as Democrats, manages the feat of sleeping at night.

But you see, vampires -- they're both dead and undead, right?

Conscience doesn't factor into it ... does it?

---

ON THE AVENUES: Die Hard the Hunter, or the political "impossibility" of rental property registration in New Albany.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Rental Property Registration is an essential tool for creating a code enforcement system that effectively identifies problem properties and, through random inspections, deters landlords from engaging in deferred maintenance and lax property management. A strongly‐enforced rental registration program “lets the owner understand that he is known to the municipality and accountable for his actions with respect to the property.”
-- "An Analysis of Rental Property Registration in Austin"

The calendar reads 2015, and as we meander yet again down the weed-choked, trash-strewn garden path of pervasive legislative impotence in New Albany as it pertains to building codes -- an exercise sure to be made even more flaccid by the imperative to waffle and pander during an election cycle -- it’s fairly clear that this ongoing abdication of responsibility over a period of decades constitutes the single biggest failing of this city's purported "leadership" caste.

Today we turn back the clock to 2008, a full seven years ago, and a series of NAC posts referencing what surely was among the city’s most theatrical of rental property registration failure.

Read them and weep, because nothing has been achieved, and cannot be for so long as value extraction and decay management remain the dominant motifs of our ever-helpful duopoly of major political parties.

---

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008
Boss Hogg and the meaning of life
Roger A. Baylor

While we may have been on opposite sides recently, at-large councilman John Gonder is intelligent, well intentioned and conscientious. Saturday morning, he’ll be convening a meeting. As explained at his blog:

The committee formed to address the issue of rental registration and code enforcement will hold its first meeting this Saturday morning, August 23, at 10:00 A.M. in the Elsa Strassweg Auditorium in the Library.

This meeting is expected to be brief. It is intended to simply outline where the committee is headed.

Those interested are welcome, and encouraged to attend.

Of course, Gonder played a prominent role in the (perhaps) concluded smoking ban saga, which turned on a “yea” swing vote by none other than Dan Coffey. The extent to which Gonder cultivated this amazing turnabout is unknown, although it’s fair to surmise that all the council’s quasi-progressives were forced to grudgingly raid their comic book collections to achieve the elimination of workplace smoking through Coffey’s surreal ballot.

The reason I muse aloud about these topics has much to do with my personal feelings about rental property registration, inspection, reform, and whatever other action is necessary to establish three simple facts.

Owning a rental property is a business.

Rental housing is a matter of public health.

Such a business is indeed the city’s business.

I made several predictions with respect to the smoking ordinance, and the majority proved correct. Last evening Coffey was overheard commenting that the council was about to establish a strong rental property registration package, and in honor of this, I’ll make another prognostication (and hope I’m wrong).

When push comes to shove, Coffey will unceremoniously kneecap any meaningful rental property reform, and while doing so, he’ll laugh at – not with – Gonder.

Like I said, I hope I’m mistaken. But color me skeptical. I see the miraculous smoking conversion as a one-off, the true price of which we’ll never know. Now we’re going to get the real Cappuccino, once again … and to the detriment of all.

---

MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2008
Steve Price on rental registration and code enforcement: "This is a bunch of (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted)."
Roger A. Baylor

Before we document the 3rd district uncouncilman’s revealingly ill-tempered sex-act-and-defecation outburst at the library on Saturday -- that's right, within whispering distance of the kiddie section -- let’s look back at a bit of pertinent information posted here last week.

Owning a rental property is more than an investment — it's a business. You have to be willing and able to commit the time and resources necessary to run your business successfully.
--GMAC Mortgage website

Did you know that to search the Internet for “rental property” + business is to generate more than 3,000,000 hits?

Yesterday, my colleague Bluegill documented the scene following Saturday’s first rental registration and code enforcement committee meeting. In the comments section, Gina Coyle asked if Price really lost it, and Jeff replied:

Yes, G, (Price) said it, apparently right after he told Lloyd Wimp that he'd do whatever he could to fight it (rental registrations).

He played most of his in-meeting comments to the landlords in the crowd, bemoaning what a tough business rental property is, which I'm sure you saw.

It's paraphrased but here's the gist:

After the meeting, an already angry Steve interrupted my conversation with another committee member.

"You're wrong. Rental property ain't a business", he said.

I told him that it is and asked what he did for a living.

He then went into a semi-intelligible tirade about how it wasn't. I asked him what he did for a living.

He told me my house (which serves as a family residence only) was a business. I asked him what he did for a living.

He hollered that he didn't want to pay any more taxes. I asked what taxes he was talking about since there hadn't been any additional taxes discussed. And then I asked him what he did for a living.

When he started to say something else unrelated, I told him to answer the question about what he did for a living.

"I'm barely breaking even", he said. "I'm living off my council salary."

"Just because your business is struggling," I said, "it doesn't mean it's not a business."

With that he turned for the door, repeated some of the stuff he'd said earlier about people wanting guys with clipboards running around, and then finally pronounced "This is all a bunch of fucking bullshit" as he headed out.

The funniest part to me is Price's unintentionally candid (and ever elastic) definition of "business": It's a business if you're making money, but not if times are hard. Price isn't making any money off his rental properties, therefore, they no longer constitute a business.

Right.

It hasn't stopped him from incorporating a business entity, has it?

I'm guessing Price's state of affairs has more to do with business expertise and the normal cycle of business than the nature of business itself, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding him. That's an easy thing to do. Listening to Price speak publicly is rather like trying to read a goat path map of Tibet -- upside down.

But those priceless expletives … well, the meaning is clear. Ironically, taken together, they also aptly describe the quality of the “work” Price has done during his tenure as councilman.

The same general attitude also helps encapsulate our eternal gratitude that council president Gahan has appointed the transparently biased Price to the rental committee. Before this, Gahan gifted the Urban Enterprise Association board with precisely the same befuddled personage (attendance record: 3 "present" and 5 "absent" so far this year).

Thanks, Jeff.

Actually, "fucking bullshit" describes Gahan's recent attitude toward the community in general just as pithily as it does Price's historically cavalier disregard for his 3rd district neighbors.

Perhaps, then, we should file this under "be careful what you wish for," because having asked for consistency, Gahan's now giving it to us.

Good and hard.

---

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Dude -- you guys live over in that product over there?
Roger A. Baylor

Tonight at the rental property inspection committee meeting, Mr. Haesley, the owner of Property Solutions, made these assertions.

(a) His business is located at (insert Floyds Knobs address here).

(b) All the many houses this business owns, from which the business derives income (dare we imagine … makes a profit?) by charging people a fee (that’d be “rent”) to live there, actually are not properties. They are products.

(c) Does a department store have to register each and every one of the products it sells?

I’ll leave it to Bluegill (who filmed the meeting) and others – was local media present? – to provide the in-depth coverage of the evening.

All I can say is this.

(a) Okay. I have an address, too. It isn’t a post office box, either.

(b) The beers I sell aren’t products, mind you. They’re dreams. How can we tax/register/license a dream?

(c) Pick an item in any store. Every step of the way, licensing is involved. Even if it comes from an unregulated Chinese sweat shop, the product is subject to some manner of importation licensing. What of the truck that delivered it? A licensed driver, of course. I'm sure we could follow this further. Why bother?

A product, huh?

Earlier in the session, Councilman John Gonder took a poll of the people in attendance, asking whether they were for or against a simple rental property registration program without registration fees. The vote predictably split along landlord/activist lines. Gonder did not permit stronger views to be enumerated.

Count me among the latter, though. So long as rental property owners insult my intelligence with arguments as weak as Mr. Haesley’s, then I advocate licenses for every rental unit in town.

Am I am extremist? Maybe. All I know is that my business is in fact a business, it is regulated to the hilt by multiple governmental agencies, and I accept regulation as the cost of doing business.

Business is business … right?

---

See also the late, lamented Lloyd's account of a chat with Haesley, here.

---

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2008
The next video should be instructional.
Jeff Gillenwater

A video feed of the second rental registration and code enforcement meeting will be posted as soon as I can get it done. The process takes hours and, seeing as how I'm trying to do the traditional media's job with a 12-year-old video camera I bought off eBay nine years ago, patience is appreciated. I think I'll leave the rig at home next time and just smoke a cigarette in the meeting room. Then you can watch it on the 11:00 news.

One needn't view the video in it's entirety, however, to grasp the essence of the situation. Amidst the embroidery of humorously bad arguments, irrelevant anecdotes, and sanitation fantasies, at least one thing is plain:

No one knows the law.

Over and over again, the questions arose: What legal obligation does the city have to notify property owners of code violations and what can legally be done if they don't respond? For that matter, what enforcement and collection options, according to the state, does the city have if they do respond? Every time, the answer was "I don't know".

Given the number of times the building commissioner has expressed exasperation with those unknowns, you'd think finding them out would be the crux of his efforts. If thinking was the hallmark of New Albany's past couple of decades, though, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

As much credit as I give John Gonder for displaying the fortitude so lacking in previous councils, there's not much sense in continuing the foray into chaos until those legal questions are answered. Otherwise, we'll be seeking to build an enforcement mechanism based on faulty remembrances rather than contemporary understanding.

And with all the superfluous talk throughout this conversation of how great things used to be, another myth is the last thing we need.

---

Time passes. Pins drop, and crickets chirp. Somewhere in the night, a dog barks.

---

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2008
The ordinance against "no-brainers" is subject to multiple interpretations.
Roger A. Baylor

There's good coverage of common sense in the morning newspaper, with our own Bluegill in an advisory capacity.

A code of safety: Some feel crime and code enforcement are linked in New Albany, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

Lax code enforcement welcomes a criminal element into New Albany, according to Jeff Gillenwater.

Gillenwater, a New Albany resident who has lobbied for tougher rules through his work with several neighborhood associations, said deteriorating houses and rentals impact more than merely property values.

“Make it look like nobody cares and potential residents will believe you, including relocating criminals,” he said.

Mayor Doug England promised to lay out his code enforcement plan to the City Council when he returns from back surgery and rehabilitation, which will likely be the first week of January.

Alas, another year has passed during which New Albany's city council has acted boldly on trivial pursuits, such as the currently unenforced (duh) ban on novelty lighters, but proposed nothing of substance to curb the city's empowerment of slumlords, a situation that derives not from ordinance, but from generations of outright political cowardice.

To be sure, there have been fact-finding meetings, and CM John Gonder waxes optimistic, telling the Tribune's Suddeath, "I am very hopeful. I have no reason to think that they will pull out a toothless tiger."

Gonder gets it, and yet toothlessness is such a part of New Albany's heritage of unresponsiveness that it surely must be written into the city's genetic code. According to our political DNA, measures to combat the unchecked reign of the slumlord are DOA. It's going to take more than words. Think: Deeds ... irrespective of the political fallout.

Uncouncilman Steve Price, who by his own testimony yearns to be regarded as a "hobbyist" rental property owner who makes nothing from it (and they call me a socialist), said it best back in August after the initial rental property registration committee meeting: "This is all a bunch of fucking bullshit."

It is, but as usual, not in the way that Price unimagines.

None of us currently know the dimension of the mayor's plan to address the reality of New Albany's default state of non-enforcement. I remain hopeful, although we are well advised to refrain from holding our breaths.

---

Postscript: Doug England did nothing through the end of his term, after which Gahan (seeking re-election this year) has done nothing since the beginning of his. 

Gahan’s 2015 primary opponent, David White, has had nothing to say on the matter, while the GOP’s rental-property-owning mayoral nominee, Kevin Zurschmiede, has led the current effort to reform building codes – without a rental property registration component. 

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
-- Mahatma Gandhi