GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Monday) No more fear, Jeff. This isn't East Germany, and you're not the Stasi.

Last week was so much fun, let's do it again.

As a run-up to Decision 2019, I'm headed back into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five straight days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult.

I've already made the case for Mark Seabrook as mayor. Now let's return to the voluminous case against Gahanism in five informative and entertaining installments -- at least until next week, when I may decide to do it all again. Heaven knows we have enough material. Following are last week's hammer blows.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Friday) Slick Jeffie's hoarding of power and money is a very real threat to New Albany's future.


Jeff Gahan's carefully crafted image as avuncular civic cheerleader is flatly contradicted by a legendarily foul behind-the-scenes temperament. Evidence of this has been cited so often by victims and observers that we needn't waste time citing line by line examples apart from pointing to his abuse of the discussion format at the League of Women Voters' sham election forum in September. 

While it's true that believing you're Walt Disney one moment and Don Corleone the next is solid evidence of a personality disorder, ultimately this is of less significance than the example Gahan's behavior sets for his sycophants and underlings, as when David Duggins threatened to turn a taser on a public housing resident and explained it as a hilarious joke.

Gahan's obsession with campaign finance has greased the skids for a political culture of corruption, and his root instinct to abuse and bully those who can't quite grasp his singular brilliance ups the ante by adding a layer of intimidation that we simply shouldn't tolerate from our elected officials.

---

ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

2018 introduction:

I'm on vacation, and this is a rerun from 10/01/2015. At the time, I was in the midst of an unsuccessful run for mayor as an independent candidate. 

The column is about intimidation; 28 months later, give or take a public housing putsch, Team Gahan was at it again when interim bulldozer mechanic David Duggins threatened a public housing resident with being tasered. 

The reason why the same old suspects persist with intimidation? It parallels your dog's decision to lick his nuts: because he can, there are no consequences, and it feels so good. 

Fortunately, there is a cure called the "ballot box": #Fire Gahan2019 

---

2015 original

“I talked to a downtown business owner. He’d put a Zurschmiede sign in his window, and (a city employee) came in and said it was frowned on. He didn’t know what that meant, so he took it down”

“I was sitting there minding my own business, and here comes (a mayor-appointed board member). He looked at me and said, ‘Jeff Gahan is the best mayor we’ve ever had.’ What was I supposed to say?”

“(The council member) ran inside and started yelling at my employees about my Baylor yard sign. He said he was a city employee, but we wouldn’t identify himself.”

“So I called down there (city offices) to see if they planned on doing anything about the trash piling up in the alley behind my neighbor’s slum, and they patched me to (high-ranking official). The first thing he said to me was where do I get off asking for favors with a Zurschmiede sign on my property?”

---

There was a novel feature of the Leadership Southern Indiana debate on Tuesday, which should have been a threesome, but was missing a sitting mayor.

Each of us was asked to provide a question to be asked of the others. With Jeff Gahan absent, this meant Kevin Zurschmiede and I questioned each other. He asked me about my depth of feeling about two-way streets, and I explained in detail.

I asked him whether he’d support local ordinances against human trafficking, and he fielded the question positively and flawlessly, indicating that he grasps important contemporary issues.

Leadership Southern Indiana might not have allowed the question I’d have asked to Gahan, had he bothered attending.

Jeff, why are so many ordinary people in our community afraid to differ openly with you?

I can almost hear the answer.

That’s a cheap shot, because every single person I’ve talked to in this city supports the water park – and if you’re not one of them, expect an angry phone call very late at night.

Yes, this is the state of New Albany’s ongoing degeneration.

---

Seeing as it’s my lot in life to say aloud what others are thinking, here it is.

During the time I’ve been paying attention to the local scene, there simply has not been any point of comparison with the atmosphere today in terms of retribution, intimidation and implied vengeance.

For those in support of the opposition, the consistent message is there’ll be hell to pay if the incumbent loses his bid for re-election.

My calls for UN election monitors and assistance from the Jimmy Carter Center are only partly in jest, because the situation is getting increasingly tense as voting draws near.

Consider the experience of Indie Fest. Last Sunday’s fourth edition was a success, with over 2,000 attendees, but it almost didn’t happen.

Earlier this year, city officials approached Indie Fest organizer Marcey Wisman-Bennett and asked her to consider shifting Indie Fest to Labor Day weekend, so as to provide a September bookend (with Boomtown Ball in May) to the summer concert series at Bicentennial Park. She also was asked to move the event to the Riverfront Amphitheater. She agreed.

Shortly thereafter, I announced my intent to gather signatures for mayoral ballot access as an independent, and Marcey agreed to be my committee chairwoman. On the day the papers were filed, she and I decided to have a coffee at Quills, and by the time we walked there from the county clerk’s office, she’d already been texted by a city higher-up expressing disdain for my candidacy, and her involvement with it.

You have three guesses as to what happened after that – and the first two don’t count.

A City Hall once nominally supportive of independent local businesses completely disappeared from view. The mayor’s handpicked Board of Works fiddled and dithered with non-information about the amphitheater’s availability, before finally denying the Labor Day weekend date previously requested by City Hall itself … because someone already had booked it.

Marcey was left to dangle for weeks, and finally gave up trying. She turned briefly to the county, which characteristically was of no help. Almost at the last possible moment, the Carter brothers, developers of Underground Station, stepped forward and took it upon themselves to approach the city and tie Indie Fest to their own plans for a grand opening weekend.

Presumably the city, having done almost nothing to assist the Carters with their project, was in a giving mood.

The many delays and obfuscations crippled Marcey’s fundraising efforts, and several former donors hinted that behind-the-scenes pressure was being exerted on them to not be seen supporting Indie Fest this year.

The story I’m telling is no secret, and it isn’t supposed to be.

Politically motivated strong-arming is a public function, not a private one, because the object is for others to see it taking place, and to learn the "proper" lesson that their own independence will be greeted in similar, heavy-handed fashion.

It’s abhorrent, and yet it’s happening. Worse yet, more than a few Democratic Party stalwarts are abetting the ugliness by refusing to face it head on.

Somehow this reminds me that the first annual meeting of Southern Indiana Equality is tonight. In the context of this meeting, human rights and Team Gahan’s incessant bullying, here’s a quote of significance from the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

“Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.”

That silence you hear?

It’s becoming deafening.

---

Free speech seems a particular irritant to Gahan and the Democratic Party, especially as it pertains to social media. In the marketplace of ideas, they’ve almost never replied to questions by facilitating dialogue, as this would constitute two-way communications, and as such, veer uncomfortably close to an admission of intent to listen.

Rather, their chosen mode of communication most often involves systematically blocking it. On social media, I've been unfriended by several Democrats, and blocked by two Democratic agitprop groups, as well as by the mayor's campaign, his personal page and his wife's.

Consequently, I close today by concurring with this important point made on Facebook by my friend Mark Cassidy.

I just want to let the Floyd County Democratic Party, Jeff Gahan, and anyone else for that matter, know that you are more than welcome to post on my timeline, respond to any comment that I may make, engage in a discussion, etc., all without fear of being blocked by me. I have no fear of the free exchange of thoughts, ideas, plans, needs, wants, desires ...

I’ve been to places where fear was a daily consideration, but New Albany isn’t East Germany, and we can do better than this.

ON THE AVENUES: Greg Pennell tells his story.

Greg Pennell is proud of his career as a police officer with the New Albany Police Department.

During 29 years of NAPD service Pennell never once was suspended, even briefly. He won a medal of valor in 2009 for capturing an armed shooter who’d murdered a co-worker at the Pillsbury plant; Pennell pioneered the NAPD’s computer crimes unit along with his and his colleague, Sherri Knight.

Perhaps most impressively, during his police career Pennell conducted himself according to a personal value system of constant accountability to the public.

“As a police officer my boss always was the population of this city,” Pennell says. “I worked for the citizens of New Albany, in my mind and my heart.”

Recently I spoke with Pennell by phone from his home in Florida, where he moved after retiring from the NAPD in mid-2016. When I asked Pennell to explain why he chose to leave the police department when he did, his answer came clear and crisp.

“I supported David White for mayor in 2015.”

Evidently freedom of speech and association had ramifications for Pennell, as it has for others in New Albany, before and since.

---

White’s announcement came on September 12, 2014 at the Scribner House in downtown New Albany. Pennell attended the short kickoff in the company of several city employees, including longtime street department workers Donnie Blevins and Clifford Swift.

Pennell remembers glancing across the intersection of Main and State Streets to the sidewalk by Wick’s Pizza and seeing three of Mayor Jeff Gahan’s closest City Hall associates standing there, intently studying the crowd at White’s gathering.

Missy Sarkisian Stotts also came to White’s announcement at the Scribner House. She had worked for many years for the city prior to being downsized in early 2012, less than a year after the 2011 Democratic Party mayoral primary, when she supported the candidacy of one of Gahan’s opponents.

Once Gahan became mayor, Stotts lost her job. She harbors no doubt that picking a primary candidate other than Gahan cost her employment.

Ron Grainger knows, too. He lost his job early, in late 2011, because someone had to be cut to allow the mayor’s future son-in-law Chris Gardner to become flood control director without the slightest relevant experience or qualifications.

Blevins and Swift were pressured and bullied subsequent to their support of White in 2015. They were long-term city employees with exemplary work records, but both opted for early retirement rather than risk being fired from their jobs.

Blevins’ own conclusion about Jeff Gahan is sweeping and comprehensive in its brevity.

“Jeff is a bully.”

---

“In 2012 I didn’t know much about Gahan,” says Pennell, who at the time had the merit rank of captain and was the NAPD’s chief of detectives.

The incoming Gahan administration formed a committee and opened a process for officers to interview for the jobs of police chief, assistant chief and major. Pennell decided to interview for the assistant chief’s job. He was offered the position of assistant police chief and accepted it.

Pennell served in the position of assistant police chief for two years, until May of 2014, when he asked to be reassigned back to chief of detectives. His request was concurrent with Knight stepping down as chief.

News reports during this period reveal the NAPD suffering from several internal controversies, with allegations of misconduct and discrimination, merit board decisions and an investigation by the Indiana State Police. In September of 2014, Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson announced that no criminal violations had been found.

“I no longer had confidence in the Gahan administration,” says Pennell, who prefers not to go into further detail.

White’s campaign launch at the Scribner House occurred one week after Henderson’s press conference, and coincidentally, almost immediately thereafter the former police chief and then-current day shift captain Merle Harl retired from the force.

Normally this would have created a vacancy for a new captain to be promoted from the waiting list of sergeants. However, Chief Todd Bailey – Gahan’s choice to replace Knight – called Pennell into his office.

“He asked me to take the day shift captain’s job instead.”

To Pennell, working as day shift captain might as well have been a demotion compared with being chief of detectives. “Why not promote a sergeant?” he asked Bailey – and there was a long silence.

With pins dropping and crickets chirping, it quickly occurred to Pennell that Bailey wasn’t giving him a choice in the matter.

“I could see the handwriting on the wall,” Pennell said. With no options, he resolved to accept Bailey’s decision and also to insist that the chief put into writing what was happening: the day shift captain’s assignment was temporary, and there would be a clear timetable for Pennell’s return to chief of detectives.

Bailey seemed reluctant to produce such a letter but eventually he did. It stated Pennell would return to being chief of detectives by October 12, 2015.*

Reassured, Pennell performed his daily duties as day shift captain and as the date drew near, he prepared for the mandated transition back to chief of detectives.

Then came another plot twist. Shortly before the October 12 deadline a fellow officer alerted Pennell to a message posted by Bailey to the NAPD’s messaging system, stating that the position of chief of detectives was being eliminated – effective immediately.

This was an unexpected and shocking development. As Pennell points out, there had been a chief of detectives in the NAPD for as long as anyone could remember: “It goes back at least to the 1880s, and maybe to the beginning of the police department in New Albany.”

Clearly, Pennell couldn’t return to a position that no longer existed. Upon reading the message he drove to police headquarters to discuss the matter with Bailey, and as luck would have it, the chief was seated in an adjacent squad car as Pennell pulled into a parking spot.

“Todd, do you have a minute to talk about the message?”

Stammering and visibly uncomfortable, Bailey replied that he had only a quick minute, so Pennell got straight to the point and asked about the signed agreement for his return to chief of detectives.

Bailey told Pennell he could go back to the detective division, but not as a captain, meaning Pennell would have to give up his merit rank of captain, which he had earned through the testing procedures put forth by the New Albany Police Merit Commission.

According to Pennell, the police chief “just walked away.” Pennell had the written evidence and still possesses it, and yet he’d been outflanked and knew it.

“I had the letter, and I could have hired an attorney, but what good would an empty promise do?”

So much for trust.

---

Pennell concedes that Bailey’s abrupt elimination of the chief of detectives position was upsetting, as was the police chief’s overall attitude toward him.

“Not many things bother me,” says Pennell, “but this one did.”

Recalling Blevins’ account of workplace harassment at the hands of Gahan’s subalterns, as well as those of other former city workers who still fear what might happen if they publicly tell their stories, it’s a familiar and destructive cycle.

What are the effects of bullying? Targeted employees can experience fear and anxiety, depression, and can develop a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder -- leading to psychological harm and actual physical illness. This leads to absenteeism and turnover as bullied employees avoid or flee the torturous workplace.

For Pennell, the mental stress exacerbated pre-existing physical conditions, and eventually he took sick leave to try and get better. He was off work for a long period. In mid-2016, Pennell chose to retire rather than continue in an unmanageable situation.

“I didn’t want to string out sick leave, and that was that.”

So it transpired that for Gahan’s purely political reasons, the NAPD lost a highly skilled, veteran officer.

Our chat concluding, Pennell recalls that the work he and Knight were doing at the computer crimes unit was noticed by none other than the Secret Service, which deputized him as a federal marshal from 2007 through his retirement in 2016.

“I think Bailey disbanded the computer crimes unit,” chuckles Pennell.

“Maybe he brought it back after I was gone.”

---

Footnote

* Ironically, Bailey himself is a rare survivor who probably can attest to the whims of Gahan’s vindictiveness. He was chief of police at the end of Doug England’s third term, and chose to support England’s handpicked successor, Irv Stumler, in the 2011 primary. Gahan handily defeated Stumler, and Bailey was removed as chief when Gahan took office in 2012. The private terms presaging Bailey’s subsequent comeback remain unknown, but he has since become a frequent Gahan campaign contributor who is willing to openly campaign for the mayor during election season.

---

Recent columns:

April 23: ON THE AVENUES: Gehenna, Franklin Graham, Jean-Paul Sartre and Fred Astaire lead us straight to Hell.

April 16: ON THE AVENUES: Amid Deaf Gahan's "victory" over grassroots activists at Colonial Manor, the toxic paranoia is no less rancid.

April 9: ON THE AVENUES: It's time for a change, and David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing.

April 2: ON THE AVENUES: Donnie Blevins tells his story.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: No more fear, Jeff (2015).

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: No more fear, Jeff (2015).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm on vacation, and this is a rerun from 10/01/2015. At the time, I was in the midst of an unsuccessful run for mayor as an independent candidate. 

The column is about intimidation; 28 months later, give or take a public housing putsch, Team Gahan was at it again when interim bulldozer mechanic David Duggins threatened a public housing resident with being tasered. 

The reason why the same old suspects persist with intimidation? It parallels your dog's decision to lick his nuts: because he can, there are no consequences, and it feels so good. 

Fortunately, there is a cure called the "ballot box": #Fire Gahan2019 

---

“I talked to a downtown business owner. He’d put a Zurschmiede sign in his window, and (a city employee) came in and said it was frowned on. He didn’t know what that meant, so he took it down”

“I was sitting there minding my own business, and here comes (a mayor-appointed board member). He looked at me and said, ‘Jeff Gahan is the best mayor we’ve ever had.’ What was I supposed to say?”

“(The council member) ran inside and started yelling at my employees about my Baylor yard sign. He said he was a city employee, but we wouldn’t identify himself.”

“So I called down there (city offices) to see if they planned on doing anything about the trash piling up in the alley behind my neighbor’s slum, and they patched me to (high-ranking official). The first thing he said to me was where do I get off asking for favors with a Zurschmiede sign on my property?”

---

There was a novel feature of the Leadership Southern Indiana debate on Tuesday, which should have been a threesome, but was missing a sitting mayor.

Each of us was asked to provide a question to be asked of the others. With Jeff Gahan absent, this meant Kevin Zurschmiede and I questioned each other. He asked me about my depth of feeling about two-way streets, and I explained in detail.

I asked him whether he’d support local ordinances against human trafficking, and he fielded the question positively and flawlessly, indicating that he grasps important contemporary issues.

Leadership Southern Indiana might not have allowed the question I’d have asked to Gahan, had he bothered attending.

Jeff, why are so many ordinary people in our community afraid to differ openly with you?

I can almost hear the answer.

That’s a cheap shot, because every single person I’ve talked to in this city supports the water park – and if you’re not one of them, expect an angry phone call very late at night.

Yes, this is the state of New Albany’s ongoing degeneration.

---

Seeing as it’s my lot in life to say aloud what others are thinking, here it is.

During the time I’ve been paying attention to the local scene, there simply has not been any point of comparison with the atmosphere today in terms of retribution, intimidation and implied vengeance.

For those in support of the opposition, the consistent message is there’ll be hell to pay if the incumbent loses his bid for re-election.

My calls for UN election monitors and assistance from the Jimmy Carter Center are only partly in jest, because the situation is getting increasingly tense as voting draws near.

Consider the experience of Indie Fest. Last Sunday’s fourth edition was a success, with over 2,000 attendees, but it almost didn’t happen.

Earlier this year, city officials approached Indie Fest organizer Marcey Wisman-Bennett and asked her to consider shifting Indie Fest to Labor Day weekend, so as to provide a September bookend (with Boomtown Ball in May) to the summer concert series at Bicentennial Park. She also was asked to move the event to the Riverfront Amphitheater. She agreed.

Shortly thereafter, I announced my intent to gather signatures for mayoral ballot access as an independent, and Marcey agreed to be my committee chairwoman. On the day the papers were filed, she and I decided to have a coffee at Quills, and by the time we walked there from the county clerk’s office, she’d already been texted by a city higher-up expressing disdain for my candidacy, and her involvement with it.

You have three guesses as to what happened after that – and the first two don’t count.

A City Hall once nominally supportive of independent local businesses completely disappeared from view. The mayor’s handpicked Board of Works fiddled and dithered with non-information about the amphitheater’s availability, before finally denying the Labor Day weekend date previously requested by City Hall itself … because someone already had booked it.

Marcey was left to dangle for weeks, and finally gave up trying. She turned briefly to the county, which characteristically was of no help. Almost at the last possible moment, the Carter brothers, developers of Underground Station, stepped forward and took it upon themselves to approach the city and tie Indie Fest to their own plans for a grand opening weekend.

Presumably the city, having done almost nothing to assist the Carters with their project, was in a giving mood.

The many delays and obfuscations crippled Marcey’s fundraising efforts, and several former donors hinted that behind-the-scenes pressure was being exerted on them to not be seen supporting Indie Fest this year.

The story I’m telling is no secret, and it isn’t supposed to be.

Politically motivated strong-arming is a public function, not a private one, because the object is for others to see it taking place, and to learn the "proper" lesson that their own independence will be greeted in similar, heavy-handed fashion.

It’s abhorrent, and yet it’s happening. Worse yet, more than a few Democratic Party stalwarts are abetting the ugliness by refusing to face it head on.

Somehow this reminds me that the first annual meeting of Southern Indiana Equality is tonight. In the context of this meeting, human rights and Team Gahan’s incessant bullying, here’s a quote of significance from the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

“Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.”

That silence you hear?

It’s becoming deafening.

---

Free speech seems a particular irritant to Gahan and the Democratic Party, especially as it pertains to social media. In the marketplace of ideas, they’ve almost never replied to questions by facilitating dialogue, as this would constitute two-way communications, and as such, veer uncomfortably close to an admission of intent to listen.

Rather, their chosen mode of communication most often involves systematically blocking it. On social media, I've been unfriended by several Democrats, and blocked by two Democratic agitprop groups, as well as by the mayor's campaign, his personal page and his wife's.

Consequently, I close today by concurring with this important point made on Facebook by my friend Mark Cassidy.

I just want to let the Floyd County Democratic Party, Jeff Gahan, and anyone else for that matter, know that you are more than welcome to post on my timeline, respond to any comment that I may make, engage in a discussion, etc., all without fear of being blocked by me. I have no fear of the free exchange of thoughts, ideas, plans, needs, wants, desires ...

I’ve been to places where fear was a daily consideration, but New Albany isn’t East Germany, and we can do better than this.

---

Recent columns:

February 8: ON THE AVENUES: Golden oldie classic comfort beers at an old school pub? Sounds like Pints & Union to me.

February 1: ON THE AVENUES: Did you hear the one about Duggins' deep TASER regrets? I laughed until I cried -- and so did the folks in Keokuk.

January 25: ON THE AVENUES: David Duggins’ violent “jokes” will continue until the New Albany Housing Authority’s morale improves – or Duggins is fired. We advocate the latter.

January 18: ON THE AVENUES: During our State of the Gahanaissance Address for 2018, feel free to resort to hard liquor. I did, and will.

ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff. 

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

“I talked to a downtown business owner. He’d put a Zurschmiede sign in his window, and (a city employee) came in and said it was frowned on. He didn’t know what that meant, so he took it down”

“I was sitting there minding my own business, and here comes (a mayor-appointed board member). He looked at me and said, ‘Jeff Gahan is the best mayor we’ve ever had.’ What was I supposed to say?”

“(The council member) ran inside and started yelling at my employees about my Baylor yard sign. He said he was a city employee, but we wouldn’t identify himself.”

“So I called down there (city offices) to see if they planned on doing anything about the trash piling up in the alley behind my neighbor’s slum, and they patched me to (high-ranking official). The first thing he said to me was where do I get off asking for favors with a Zurschmiede sign on my property?”

---

There was a novel feature of the Leadership Southern Indiana debate on Tuesday, which should have been a threesome, but was missing a sitting mayor.

Each of us was asked to provide a question to be asked of the others. With Jeff Gahan absent, this meant Kevin Zurschmiede and I questioned each other. He asked me about my depth of feeling about two-way streets, and I explained in detail.

I asked him whether he’d support local ordinances against human trafficking, and he fielded the question positively and flawlessly, indicating that he grasps important contemporary issues.

Leadership Southern Indiana might not have allowed the question I’d have asked to Gahan, had he bothered attending.

Jeff, why are so many ordinary people in our community afraid to differ openly with you?

I can almost hear the answer.

That’s a cheap shot, because every single person I’ve talked to in this city supports the water park – and if you’re not one of them, expect an angry phone call very late at night.

Yes, this is the state of New Albany’s ongoing degeneration.

---

Seeing as it’s my lot in life to say aloud what others are thinking, here it is.

During the time I’ve been paying attention to the local scene, there simply has not been any point of comparison with the atmosphere today in terms of retribution, intimidation and implied vengeance.

For those in support of the opposition, the consistent message is there’ll be hell to pay if the incumbent loses his bid for re-election.

My calls for UN election monitors and assistance from the Jimmy Carter Center are only partly in jest, because the situation is getting increasingly tense as voting draws near.

Consider the experience of Indie Fest. Last Sunday’s fourth edition was a success, with over 2,000 attendees, but it almost didn’t happen.

Earlier this year, city officials approached Indie Fest organizer Marcey Wisman-Bennett and asked her to consider shifting Indie Fest to Labor Day weekend, so as to provide a September bookend (with Boomtown Ball in May) to the summer concert series at Bicentennial Park. She also was asked to move the event to the Riverfront Amphitheater. She agreed.

Shortly thereafter, I announced my intent to gather signatures for mayoral ballot access as an independent, and Marcey agreed to be my committee chairwoman. On the day the papers were filed, she and I decided to have a coffee at Quills, and by the time we walked there from the county clerk’s office, she’d already been texted by a city higher-up expressing disdain for my candidacy, and her involvement with it.

You have three guesses as to what happened after that – and the first two don’t count.

A City Hall once nominally supportive of independent local businesses completely disappeared from view. The mayor’s handpicked Board of Works fiddled and dithered with non-information about the amphitheater’s availability, before finally denying the Labor Day weekend date previously requested by City Hall itself … because someone already had booked it.

Marcey was left to dangle for weeks, and finally gave up trying. She turned briefly to the county, which characteristically was of no help. Almost at the last possible moment, the Carter brothers, developers of Underground Station, stepped forward and took it upon themselves to approach the city and tie Indie Fest to their own plans for a grand opening weekend.

Presumably the city, having done almost nothing to assist the Carters with their project, was in a giving mood.

The many delays and obfuscations crippled Marcey’s fundraising efforts, and several former donors hinted that behind-the-scenes pressure was being exerted on them to not be seen supporting Indie Fest this year.

The story I’m telling is no secret, and it isn’t supposed to be.

Politically motivated strong-arming is a public function, not a private one, because the object is for others to see it taking place, and to learn the "proper" lesson that their own independence will be greeted in similar, heavy-handed fashion.

It’s abhorrent, and yet it’s happening. Worse yet, more than a few Democratic Party stalwarts are abetting the ugliness by refusing to face it head on.

Somehow this reminds me that the first annual meeting of Southern Indiana Equality is tonight. In the context of this meeting, human rights and Team Gahan’s incessant bullying, here’s a quote of significance from the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

“Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.”

That silence you hear?

It’s becoming deafening.

---

Free speech seems a particular irritant to Gahan and the Democratic Party, especially as it pertains to social media. In the marketplace of ideas, they’ve almost never replied to questions by facilitating dialogue, as this would constitute two-way communications, and as such, veer uncomfortably close to an admission of intent to listen.

Rather, their chosen mode of communication most often involves systematically blocking it. On social media, I've been unfriended by several Democrats, and blocked by two Democratic agitprop groups, as well as by the mayor's campaign, his personal page and his wife's.

Consequently, I close today by concurring with this important point made on Facebook by my friend Mark Cassidy.

I just want to let the Floyd County Democratic Party, Jeff Gahan, and anyone else for that matter, know that you are more than welcome to post on my timeline, respond to any comment that I may make, engage in a discussion, etc., all without fear of being blocked by me. I have no fear of the free exchange of thoughts, ideas, plans, needs, wants, desires ...

I’ve been to places where fear was a daily consideration, but New Albany isn’t East Germany, and we can do better than this.

---

Recent columns:

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Almost two years later, Mr. Gahan has yet to plug in this clock, and so it's time for him to clock out.

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Dear Neighbor: If you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: Lanesville Heritage Weekend comes around again.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: When even Mitt Romney can run to the left of New Albany’s Democrats, it's a very big problem.

August 27: ON THE AVENUES: Whips, chains and economic development (2010).

August 20: ON THE AVENUES: In the groove.

August 13: ON THE AVENUES: It’s time to purge two-party politics and tie the community together.