ASK THE BORED: Is consistency among BOW's mandates when it debates street closings?

It's possible the Board of Public Works and Safety might actually be trying to regain a sense of consistency.

Time will tell.

What we know from the minutes of January 14 is that the Regions Antique Automobile Club came to BOW well ahead of time to ask for a street closing (Market from Bank to State) for four hours on a Thursday evening (August 20).

Mrs. Cotner Bailey raised the valid point that it would inconvenience businesses and residents. Mrs. Jarboe noted that her equally sensible suggestion to move the event to the amphitheater was rejected by the club. Then Mr. Nash stated the board needs to have a conversation about street closure requests and event permits coming in so far ahead of time.

You'd think the board would appreciate advance notice, but still, these are reasonable considerations overall.

How, then, to explain the board's perennial enthusiasm for the NA Blues, Brews and Barbecue Fest, which a mere four months ago blocked the entirety of Market between Pearl and State for two and a half days, inconvenienced businesses and residents so an on-street KOA campground could be erected atop the city's new median, and would be much more efficiently staged if it were to be relocated ... to the amphitheater?

There is no explanation, at least not yet. If the board's brush-off of the Antique Automobile Club means it finally intends to have these conversations and grasp the need for consistency, that's very good and I for one support it.

If not, it's just more of the same hypocrisy -- primarily from BOW's superannuated figurehead.

The following was published here last September.

---

Beginning tonight -- Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. -- both traffic lanes on Market Street between State and Pearl will be closed until Sunday morning. Sidewalks will not be blocked.

The reason for the closure is to allow public space for professional BBQ teams to cook their meats for the weekend NA Blues, Brews and Barbecue Fest. You are encouraged to attend this event.

Speaking personally, if we're to be genuinely walkable as a city, then disruptions like this are of little or no consequence.

However, reality on the ground dictates this reminder that there's a parking garage at the corner of State and Market, and parking by the levee at the foot of Pearl -- and quite a few curbside parking spaces everywhere, even on a busy weekends, just a short distance from the event and the affected businesses on both sides of the closed segment of Market Street.

It should be seasonable the next few evenings. If you're driving, park somewhere and have a nice walk, then a bite and a drink. Don't have too much of the latter if you're driving.

And ponder the question of why we purpose-built Bicentennial Park to be problematic and barely usable for events, and naturally insist on constantly using it for such events even when the Riverfront Amphitheater would be far more appropriate.

The New Albany Blues Brews and BBQ Festival is Friday and Saturday.

Beginning tonight -- Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. -- both traffic lanes on Market Street between State and Pearl will be closed until Sunday morning. Sidewalks will not be blocked.

The reason for the closure is to allow public space for professional BBQ teams to cook their meats for the weekend NA Blues, Brews and Barbecue Fest. You are encouraged to attend this event.

Speaking personally, if we're to be genuinely walkable as a city, then disruptions like this are of little or no consequence.

However, reality on the ground dictates this reminder that there's a parking garage at the corner of State and Market, and parking by the levee at the foot of Pearl -- and quite a few curbside parking spaces everywhere, even on a busty weekends, just a short distance from the event and the affected businesses on both sides of the closed segment of Market Street.

It should be seasonable the next few evenings. If you're driving, park somewhere and have a nice walk, then a bite and a drink. Don't have too much of the latter if you're driving.

And ponder the question of why we purpose-built Bicentennial Park to be problematic and barely usable for events, and naturally insist on constantly using it for such events even when the Riverfront Amphitheater would be far more appropriate.

Idiot Wind: Gahan voters rejoice as heroic street-closure rescues Reisz-Stag from litter, though not from rampant public disdain and derision.

No soiled diapers were left behind.

As Grandpa Jones always reminded us, truth is stranger than fact.

But don't worry, folks. City Hall insists that Jeff Gahan's multi-million-dollar romper room for government employees will be completed on schedule (September 2019).

Have I mentioned that David White intends to examine "wants" with an eye toward eliminating the ones that don't pass muster as "needs"?

Previously:

ON THE AVENUES: Government Lives Matter, so it's $10,000,000 for Gahan's luxury city hall clique enhancement. Happy dumpster diving, peasants!

The Reisz cost commitment already has topped $10,000,000 in a city where perhaps a quarter of the residents live below the poverty line; where Gahan and his new unofficial deputy mayor and slavish devotee David Barksdale are eager to demolish half of the city's public housing units; and where city hall has yet to mention aloud minor details like the opioid epidemic, the accompanying rise in thievery and petty crime, homelessness, and the worsening plight of our city's working poor.

The sloganeering is so oppressive that a Trump rally seems like the knitter's circle coffee klatsch by comparison.

ASK THE BORED: Horse posteriors. Anti-intellectualism and indie business shaming on July 18. It's just as Jeff Gahan trains his blundering gatekeepers to be.

Your indulgence, please.

The city's mode of presenting relevant documents can make it challenging at times, but we persevere. There comes the pivot when you let their words speak for themselves, and so following are minutes from the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting last Tuesday (July 18).

After the minutes, blog links are provided from last week's coverage of the social research survey snafu, followed by the transcript of an exchange at the Bookseller's Fb page.

4 "Right Thing Done Rightly" as Team Gahan corrects Warren's social research faux pas, then enjoys an ice cold bucket of Lima-A-Ritas over at the roadhouse.


3 Warren's sad Board of Works social research meltdown: "Jeff Gahan’s appointees could use a refresher course in due process. After all, it is a tenet of representative government and basic justice."

2 Warren's bored, hysterical and useless -- or, "Oops – NA BoW Messes Up."

1 Democratic Party stalwart Warren Nash: Heck, this board hasn't ever approved social research study requests. Besides, we already have a captive sociologist.

Perhaps the most revealing part of the Fb transcript isn't when Warren Nash knowingly contradicts his own meeting minutes. We've come to expect it from him.

Rather, it's when councilman Phipps -- seldom the punctual debater on social media -- leaps heroically into the fray to forge a resolution, and naturally begins by thanking the wrong people for prompting the investigation.

BUT look at the top of the BoW meeting minutes, and you'll see Phipps' name as among those attending the very same BoW meeting when all this first occurred.

Was Nash napping, or was Phipps -- or both? Maybe they had to check first with Adam Dickey to determine whether they were there, or not.

Yes, there's even more. 

I've also included the minutes (above) documenting Brittany Enah's (Underground Classic Cuts) request to close Bank Street for a street party on the 22nd.

The request was shelved owing to the concurrent RiverStage production at the amphitheater, and probably legitimately, but it's the tone of rejection you should note.

I corresponded with Brittany after the meeting, and she felt angered and humiliated by the board's attitude, which I view as a legitimate reaction on her part, seeing as the otherwise dispassionate meeting minutes completely convey the bullying flavor of the interrogation.

Seemingly everyone in the room (except Phipps, who was there but apparently wasn't there) took a turn at bat upbraiding Brittany for not knowing proper procedures.

When was the last time anyone from the board or any other arm of municipal government undertook to educate anyone about anything?

Maybe on its Facebook page?

Nope. Read closely.

It's delicious: petty Nashian officialdom on what is and isn't really official. Next week, if merited, he'll flip to a different explanation, and Dickey will bask in the warm glow of tumescence.

If indie business owners don't know the exact procedure for such requests, then perhaps an august institution like Develop New Albany could take precious time off from planning another spate of one-off "signature" events to educate the business owners to help plan their own events properly -- but wait, maybe the Board of Works itself might embrace such an inclusive attitude.

Fat chance, bub.

You see, the reason why this street closing request played out the way it did is because Jeff Gahan's monetization regime needs to control events, because to control events is to (a) regulate their content according to Gahanian standards of suburban propriety, and (b) exact the proper rivulets of tribute in return.

The only surprise last Tuesday is that Nash didn't inform Brittany that she should join DNA at the proper partnership level if she expects any degree of politeness and helpfulness from the Bored.

DNA is the "official" arm. Underground Station? Just a bunch of indie business complainers who won't pay the right lady.

In summary, last Tuesday's meeting did not represent a shining moment in the recent history of the Board of Public Works and Safety. Few do, but this one was special -- epochal, perhaps.

Team Gahan's corrosive paranoia and compulsive wagon-circling seem to have been codified in official policy. Insiders are coddled, and "outsiders" scorned with bureaucratic gobbledygook, if not open abuse.

This is your New Gahania, readers. It doesn't have to be. Is it 2019 yet?

ASK THE BORED: Now they're branching out into festival micro-management.

Today marks the midpoint of BOW's unofficial annual vacation, as it's almost time for our most peculiar of institutions, a 501(c)3 non-profit, to assume responsibility for the management of downtown streets -- with the board's permission, though never with any accounting of how much the municipal infrastructure subsidy costs taxpayers each year.

After all, vendors from elsewhere directly paying Harvest Homecoming for the privilege of doing business on closed streets must enjoy a level playing field, even if local merchants are relegated to the fryer-oil-lubed shadows behind the booths.

We cannot allow any non-sanctioned proposal to disrupt normal Harvest Homecoming procedures downtown, given that normal Harvest Homecoming procedures already disrupt everything else downtown.
-- Board of Works (quoted from body language, not actual words)

But take heart, downtown stakeholders; the floggings will continue until morale improves, because the City of New Albany is transitioning to new civic identity as HarvestHomeComingStan.

According to David “Bag Man” Duggins, the city’s economic dishevelment aggregator, the city’s new name is as plain as the anchor on his tramp stamp.

Following is an interesting tidbit from last Tuesday's BOW session, in which chairman of the bored Warren Nash proposes renewed and diligent attention to the micromanagement of local festivals -- well, except Harvest Homecoming, because with the undisclosed annual infrastructure subsidy, HH is always able to pack the streets with booths, even if they must be shipped directly from Guangdong.

We'll try to do a better job of that next year, Mr. Nash.

By the way, did you notice that your Democratic Party's tent was one of them? The Republicans didn't bother.

This counts for extra credit -- right?

Dude -- look at those elephant ears!

A Band-Aid will do, so a relieved Bob Caesar takes down his GoFundMe page for Spring Street Hill.

"Wait," said Councilman Caesar. "I've got a whole garage filled with paving stones, and we can use them to patch the hole until the GoFundMe thing takes off."

Below (courtesy of Al Knable) are views of the before and after.

Meanwhile ...

Mother Nature called. Wants her planning and engineering credentials back. Says to shove your campaign kickbacks.

Without cooking classes or reality TV shows to confuse it, the newspaper actually provides coverage.

Sinkhole closes Spring Street Hill in New Albany; Repair may be completed by end of week, by Chris Morris (Clark County Jailhouse Compendium)

NEW ALBANY — Dr. Al Knable admits being a “pretty observant guy,” which may have helped prevent a car accident or injury along a section of Spring Street Hill on Sunday.

Knable, an At-large member of the New Albany City Council, said he had been watching a section of the hill for about two weeks. He said he noticed it Sunday morning, and two hours later said it had opened up “a little more.” He called the New Albany Street Department Director Mickey Thompson who Knable praised for his prompt attention to the issue. The road was quickly closed.

The sinkhole turned out to eventually be four feet wide by six foot deep, Knable said.

Knable said “it’s an unspoken fear” for the people who travel the road regularly to be observant and to look out for possible shifts or sinkhole. The road was closed for several weeks a few years ago due to a cave in, but that was in a different section, Knable said.

Engineers inspected the area and determined that there was a small crack in the culvert running underneath the road, according to a release from Mike Hall with the mayor’s office. Water began to filter through the crack, pulling the soil with it. Eventually, this caused the asphalt to recede and give out, causing a hole in the road and forcing the road to be closed to traffic.

“After conversations and recommendations from our engineering consultants, a polymer solution will be used to fill the crack in the culvert, which will prevent future leaks,” said Joe Ham, stormwater coordinator, in the release.

This repair is expected to be finished by the end of the week, if not sooner.

Wormholes, rabbit holes, ratholes and now this big-ass Caesar Hole on Spring Street Hill.

Is there money left in the Sinking Fund? (not my joke; thanks to my gag writer)

It's déjà vu all over again. At around 4:00 p.m.on Sunday, at-large councilman Al Knable and family began posting photos on social media.

PLEASE SHARE!

Spring Street Hill, New Albany CLOSED until further notice...

THANKS to Mickey Thompson and NAPD for a quick response on a busy Memorial Day.

Pictures below document what the street looked like around noon today when I called the Street Department. Four hours later we have what you see below.

Initial assessment is likely to take a few days. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime please STAY AWAY as this is still UNSTABLE and should be considered DANGEROUS.

On June 29, 2005 at a special Board of Works session held at night at the Calumet Club (small wonder James Garner got beat), someone in the crowd asked a question and received an answer, paraphrased.

Q. Will the road up Spring Street hill be reopened?
A. Yes, if we can find the money necessary to make repairs the right way.

By 2009, the "right way" had been found, and the usual suspects at Jacobi Toombs and Lanz designed repairs to the tune of $1.3 million.

In April of 2011, Spring Street Hill was closed again after it was revealed that no one involved with the "right" 2009 repairs had considered the possibility it might rain. A year and $660,000 later, Bob Caesar declared a "state of copacetic," which abruptly ended earlier today.

Following (in reverse order) are NAC links to those classic 2012 municipal deliberations. What happens next is anyone's guess, but if you're keeping track: To date, that's $2 million for less than a half-mile of Spring Street Hill, and around $3 million for less than a mile of Main Street beautification.

Somewhere right now, Dan Coffey is salivating, but he (and we) must wait until next Monday.

Hey, kids -- BOOMTOWN!

---

June 3, 2012

Nash asks: If those who benefit must pay for it, then why not toll Spring Street hill?

NASH: A little bit of everything, by Matt Nash

... A few weeks ago the New Albany City Council failed to pass a non-binding resolution condemning the use of tolls to fund the Ohio River Bridges project. After being the first municipal government to speak out against tolls a couple of years ago, this time the vote went the other way. A couple of the councilmen spoke out about how much our community needed both of these bridges and the only fair way to pay for it is with tolls.

The resolution was in response to a study that shows the downtown bridge will have a negative impact on the lives of Hoosiers and the people of our state will end up paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of these bridges.

Interestingly the same city council voted to spend $660,000 of taxpayer money to fix the problems with Spring Street Hill. This after spending $1.3 million on the road just a few years ago. The road allows better access to a select few in the neighborhood of Silver Hills. Had the pro-toll councilman used the same logic as the “Bridges Authority” that those who benefit should be the ones who pay for the project, they could have just made Spring Street Hill a toll road too.

---

May 23, 2012

Bob Caesar's commute is about to get easier.

... Councilman Bob Caesar, who sponsored the council measure and is a Silver Hills resident, said the reopening of Spring Street Hill road will be a “big deal” for the community.

“We just wanted to make sure this was done once and done right,” he said ...

... City officials firmly stated their intentions to install and enforce vehicle weight limits for Spring Street Hill Road. “I’d even recommend a camera on that hill to keep heavy trucks off of the hill,” Caesar said.

quotes from the paper (Suddeath)

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May 18, 2012 (Gillenwater)

Separate but equal but not really (wink, wink).

The City of New Albany has recently spent an amount on Spring Street Hill Road nearly double the state's total $1.2 million annual TARC outlay to fund transit in the whole of Southern Indiana.

That poorly located, two-fifths mile of engineering accident serving a very limited but very specific population was deemed a high priority necessity for all the goofy reasons Bob "adverse and disproportionate are good, right?" Caesar and a handful of well placed others could muster.

But cut multiple bus routes on which other parts of the city depend for work, groceries, trips to the doctor, etc.? Shucks and shrugs all around. Sorry about your luck.

Given that we're about to spend another million or so on Governor's Balls and the like patting ourselves on the back for 200 years of ongoing something or other, isn't it about time we address the blatant, class-based attitudes that fuel our politics as much now as they did when Washington C. DePauw owned our government?

---

March 7, 2012

On engineering and the devaluation of 1,000-year weather events.

At Monday's city council meeting, as the discussion turned to how many dollars per inch it will require to restore Spring Street Hill to viability as Councilman Bob Caesar's fastest route home, engineers became weathermen.

New Albany council wants review of Spring Street Hill work; $540,000 project receives initial approval, but second opinion requested, by Daniel Suddeath (News, Tribune and Pop Up Generator)

The city hoped to receive aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, as Jacobi, Toombs and Lanz President Jorge Lanz said almost 9 inches of rain fell on Silver Hills between April 19 and May 2 of 2011.

But FEMA denied the city’s request earlier this month, though administration officials declared Monday they will appeal the decision within 60 days. Lanz said the “historic” problems associated with the road were part of FEMA’s decision to deny the request, though he said much their reasoning for the ruling was still “cloudy” ...

... Lanz said crews had to dig about 30 feet into the ground before the ravine was discovered, and he added that kind of testing is unusual for such a project.

The drainage installed met city standards, but it’s not feasible to design a system capable of dealing with a 1,000 year storm like April’s rain event was, he continued.

“For this kind of structure, I don’t know what else we could have done,” Lanz said.

If umbrellas were necessary, were they to protect us from rain, or exaggerations? A blog reader delved into the archives:

Indiana Precipitation Records

Driest location ranked by lowest annual average precipitation: English, southern Indiana, 49.72"

Wettest location ranked by highest annual average precipitation: Monroeville, northeast Indiana, 33.74"

Snowiest location ranked by highest annual average snowfall: South Bend, northern Indiana, 76.6"

State precipitation maximum for 24 hours - Princeton, southwest Indiana, 8/6/1905, 10.50"

State precipitation maximum for 1 year - Marengo, southern Indiana, 1890, 97.38"

State snow maximum for 24 hours - Seymour, south-central Indiana, 12/22-23/2004, 29.0"

State snow maximum for 1 season - South Bend, northern Indiana, 1977-1978, 172.0"

It's hard to believe that nine inches of rain falling in a 13 day period qualifies as a "1,000 year storm" - especially when you consider 10.5 inches fell in 24 hours in 1905 in Princeton, Indiana.

Indeed, and another friend asks: "Didn't this much rain fall in two days back in 1997?" In the end, it probably doesn't matter. Caesar wants his handy commute fixed -- and that's not a request.

... Caesar, who is sponsoring the measure, agreed that a second opinion is “imperative” but doesn’t believe it will greatly delay the project to obtain a review.

“I think this could happen in a very short amount of time,” he said.

-----------------

March 2, 2012 (Gillenwater)

Head for the hill: Caesar leading another self-serving charge.

Despite Bob Caesar's silly claims to the contrary, Spring Street Hill Road is not a major city artery. It's a low volume, local access road serving a very limited number of residents who have not one but two alternate routes for entering and exiting their relatively isolated neighborhood(s).

The entire path in question is approximately 1,900 feet long. If Caesar's latest proposition receives council approval, the imprudently championed and poorly executed 2/5 of a mile update will have cost citizens $1,000 per foot, assuming the same engineers who didn't sufficiently account for the watershed last time get it right this time.

But Bob lives up there, so nothing's more important.

New Albany’s Spring Street Hill fix to be heard, by Daniel Suddeath

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany City Council will be asked Monday to appropriate $540,000 for Spring Street Hill Road repairs, which if approved, would bring the total amount of money spent on stabilizing the street to nearly $1.9 million.

The road was again closed by the city in May after a section of the street shifted following heavy rains last spring. In 2009, Spring Street Hill was reopened after being shutdown for several years due to erosion problems.

More than $1.3 million in tax-increment financing, or TIF, proceeds were poured into the project three years ago, as engineers and officials believed the road that connects the city’s West End to Silver Hills was finally stable.

New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part 89: Let US help you with the issues WE caused by closing the street.

Worthy of a touristic postcard, isn't it? 

My single favorite plot device, one sprinkled "liberally" through local board meetings (see what I did there?), is when the bureaucrats who caused the problem in the first place earnestly promise to "look into" resolving it.

Concern grows over New Albany Farmers Market (Suddeath; N and T)

Though the closure is only expected to last until construction is completed on the new Farmers Market pavilion, some business owners chided the city for shutting down a second block of Bank Street so that vendors could set up booths ...

... But the market is intended to help farmers and businesses, so the city and organizers want to ensure people are satisfied with the operation, (Susan) Kaempfer and (Mickey) Thompson said.

“We’re trying to do anything we can to accommodate everyone while the street is closed,” Kaempfer said ...

Feeling better yet?

Let's hope this week's collection of photos, subtitled "tons and tons of steel for your quality of life" help to ease the pain of lost revenue. Just remember: They're looking into it.

Mulberry House Antiques and "an encroaching Farmers Market."

Downtown from the top, down. Rinse ... repeat.

City Hall non-transparency yet again: Independent downtown businesses negatively impacted by Saturday farmers market street closing.

Little more than a consistent commitment to communication would help to resolve these matters, wouldn't it?

How hard can it possibly be?

An encroaching Farmers Market

I have a shop at 307 Bank St. in New Albany. The shop has been at this location for eight years. Imagine my shock and dismay when I arrived to open the shop this past Saturday, May 9, and found that the Farmers Market had commandeered not only Bank Street between Market and Spring streets, but the sidewalks as well.

There were trucks and cars parked all along the sidewalk with the tents and vendors in the street. No one, not me as a business owner nor the property owners, had been notified that this was to take place or that it would be for the entire season.

Since the Farmers Market is not only open Saturdays, which is normally one of our best business days, but Wednesdays as well, this will seriously impact our business, cutting us down to three days a week.

For some reason, the former location for the Farmers Market is blocked off and not accessible [at the corner of Market and Bank streets] where it has been for years. Construction on improvements was started about the same time the market was due to open for the season [it sat vacant since last November]. Apparently all work has now ceased.

I was under the obviously mistaken impression that the goal of Develop New Albany and the city administration was to help downtown businesses, not force them to close. My shop and the other antique shop around the corner on Market Street bring people from all over the country to New Albany. They patronize not only our antique shops but the other local shops and restaurants.

There are many other places where the Farmers Market could be moved that would not be harmful to the downtown businesses and would not tear up the new sidewalk which has already been damaged by the trucks and cars using it as a parking lot.

— Betty Rinker, Mulberry House Antiques, New Albany

City Hall non-transparency yet again: Independent downtown businesses negatively impacted by Saturday farmers market street closing.

I tell ya, crosswalks -- they get no respect.

The following is reprinted as posted on Facebook by Antiques Attic.

It is worth noting that during Mayor Gahan's tenure, there has yet to be public input in any credible form as to the operation, location and disposition of the farmers market.

That isn't snark, just truth. Why can't this City Hall communicate? It must be because it doesn't want to communicate.

---

Part One.

This is a rant about the way things get done here in downtown New Albany.

Who had the idea that it would be ok to move the vendors of the Farmer's Market around the corner on Bank Street? Was any consideration given as to how it might affect the two businesses there? (Mulberry House Antiques and soon opening Coqui's Cafe)?

Be careful before answering because they had no previous knowledge that the street was going to be blocked for vendors on each saturday (till October?). If someone had communicated with them in advance maybe it could have went smoother and without upset.

Can someone tell me if it is illegal to park on the sidewalk? The vendors were two wheel on the street and two wheel on the sidewalk behind their booths. Is that how you get away or around the law?

Before making the decision, if you had talked to these businesses you may have heard some good reasoning why this was harmful for them. First they were not prepared in advance to advise their customers there would not be any parking for them on each saturday. Plus if you want to buy something big or heavy at the Antique Mall we will not be able to get you close by , let alone help to load the merchandise. Also vehilcles parked on the sidewalk will further block access to and from.

Something else of interest is the fact that in the Antique business every single year the slowest least profitable time are from the middle of Jan until the middle of May. Many reasons I wont go into now, but .....now when business will begin to pick up to its peak this summer on the busiest day of the week Saturday you will be causing a problem for them called ACCESS EVERY SATURDAY TILL THE END OF OCTOBER POSSIBLY!!!

Curious also is why mostly non local community vendors (in other words they live in different tax zones,not ours, and are seasonal) are given preference and success at the expense of local tax paying citizens and Independent Businesses. Over all most of the businesses are glad the Farmer's Market is located and successful downtown but no data has ever been provided to showcase that they cause any economic benefit to our city, the rent they pay for booth's is chump change and again the taxes received is what?!

Could there be other options for the Farmer's Market while the new market is being built? No doubt, but no one bothered, or at least that is how it seems since no communication goes on in this town with the people that will be affected.

We as downtown Independent Businesses sacrifice for a full week every year being cutoff and out by Harvest Homecoming. Many of us just close and escape. Even an occasional event occurs for a day and the streets get blocked, yeah we deal with and sacrifice then also. SO.....now without even consulting you want us to sacrifice every saturday during our peak time? Can you argue different? If you can please share this info with us soon so we can bend over and smile.

If this is offensive to anyone out there I am truly sorry but it needs to be said. After all the years of ups and downs running a business in downtown New Albany, a place with no economic development plan geared to help the Independent Businesses that have tried to be a part of hope and revival for this community, for you as leaders or authorities to consisitantly make decisions without communication with those affected SHAME ON YOU

OK now you are aware that it was not the best choice what are you going to do to correct the issue????

As I stated above my attempts to communicate by email or facebook posts are deleted and not responded to. Just when you feel like doing business in downtown New Albany could not get any worse, WHAM it does.

Part Two

Part two of the saga concerning the new placement of New Albany Farmers Market around the corner on Bank Street. Talked to City Clerk this morning advised upset about situation and ask where should we start for complaint? Advised the City Clerks office passed thru after the Board of Works was given the request with the stipulation or requirement of approval by the businesses in area. When request was admitted it said it had had been discussed with businesses and no problem so passed. Well someone was apparently LYING (politically correct MISSPOKE) because those businesses immediately affected and us around the corner were never approached on the subject.

We were told we would need to speak with the @New Albany Board of Public Works and now have an appointment with them tomorrow morning. Will it be revoked? That is our goal. We are also planning to contact all @New Albany City Council Members on the matter to make them aware also. I have also sent an email copy of this post to the person in charge of the Farmer's Market.

We are not "The Sky is Falling" personality types but this will have an impact on those businesses directly affected and others in area. This could make or break those businesses affected. Reaction possibilities by the businesses affected could be failure when it would normally be a peak time, or even considerations of moving out to a diiferent location or just closing their doors.

WISH US LUCK

City, newspaper combine to miscommunicate.

There are problems with announcements of this nature.

Grant Line to close!

First, seeing as Grant Line Road runs quite some distance, is a consideration of what the newspaper leaves unsaid: Which part of Grant Line Road is being closed? Important, don't you think?

Second, having read a bit further (which vast numbers of folks won't do) and knowing that the road closure will not impede business access in the College Park Brewing Corridor, wouldn't it be nice to receive advance notice from the city and not the newspaper?

Third, after reassuring those customers who've heard only that Grant Line Road will be closed, and not when, or whether the closure will affect Gravity Head access (remember that time when the rat bastards at the water company utility monopoly screwed us out of ten grand on a Gravity Head Friday night?), maybe we can pitch in for a sympathy card for the businesses located at the corner of Grant Line and Daisy.

Wouldn't you just love to hear about these things from the city, first, and not last?

Grant Line to close for New Albany stormwater project; Also: MAC awarded contract for Main Street work, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — A portion of Grant Line Road could close for up to 60 days for drainage upgrades city officials said are desperately needed to ease flooding in the area.

MAC Construction and Excavating will cut open Grant Line Road just south of the Daisy Lane intersection in order to replace four culverts. City officials said the system hasn’t been upgraded in 60 years, and flooding, especially near the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, has traditionally been a problem in the area.