Black Lives Matter? Here PAVING is what matters -- and NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW, presented by the GREEN MOUSE.

That's right. Corbin, Kentucky.

Good job, Corbin, Kentucky. By the way, do any of the pretend-progressives in Nawbany have a pulse?

Why The Small Protests In Small Towns Across America Matter, by Anne Helen Petersen (Buzz Feed)

People who’ve watched and participated in the Black Lives Matter movement say that this time feels different. And the prevalence of these small protests is one of many reasons why.

... All over the country, people are showing up — often for the first time in their lives — to protest police brutality and injustice. In tiny ag towns like Havre (Montana) and Hermiston, Oregon, but also in midsize cities Topeka, Kansas, and Waco, Texas; on island hamlets (Friday Harbor, San Juan Island; Nantucket, Massachusetts; Bar Harbor, Maine); and in well-to-do suburbs (Lake Forest Park, Washington; Darien, Connecticut; Chagrin Falls, Ohio). They are showing up at the courthouse. They are kneeling and observing eight minutes of silence — a reference to how long Floyd was pinned to the ground in a knee chokehold by the Minneapolis police officer who was later charged with his murder. They are marching down interstates and waving signs on street corners. Sometimes, like in the town of Alton, New Hampshire (population 5,335), where one woman organized a protest just two months after being hospitalized with COVID-19, only seven people come. Sometimes, like in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, there are thousands ...

... There have been protests in Belfast, Maine. In Farmington, New Mexico. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In Bentonville, Arkansas. In Lubbock, Texas. In Idaho Falls, Idaho. The biggest anyone can remember in Paducah, Kentucky, in Bozeman, Montana, in Pendleton, Oregon, in Frisco, Texas, and in Ogden, Utah. In Tacoma, Washington, pastors knelt in the rain, pleading with God. In Bowling Green, Kentucky, three rolling days of protests. In Owatonna, Minnesota, a student-led protest lasted for 10 hours. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, thousands gathered on the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre. In Myers Park, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Charlotte, North Carolina, where black people were prohibited from owning property for decades. And in Petal, Mississippi, where protesters have spent days calling for the resignation of Mayor Hal Marx, who tweeted last week that “If you can talk, you can breathe” ...

Here in the campaign finance paradise of New Gahania, we don't care shit for no damn revolution, because it's street sweeping season!

To which I answer:

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

Until you've seen the townies on their front porches chasing Hostess doughnuts with iced tea and waving at the street sweeper drivers, you've no idea why people like Bob Caesar are elected to office.

Read more here:

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

But there's more: The 4th of July on the 3rd of July is postponed!

New Albany postpones July 3 event following extension of public health emergency (at Hanson's Folly)

Well, at least there's still Harvest Homecoming ... what's that?

Nope. There'll be no waves of orange coursing through the streets this October, because New Albany's civic celebration also has fallen victim to pandemic public health logic. A very tough call for the committee, but absolutely the correct one.

Organizers cancel 2020 Harvest Homecoming Festival amid coronavirus pandemic (at WDRB)

And, there was a primary election and less than 25% of us bothered. This being a presidential year, the voter turnout percentage will increase tremendously in November, and Donald Trump probably will win Floyd County again.

In the interim, the big news out of the primary was the NA-FC school corporation's safety referendum defeat, by a margin of around 5%. Consequently, let's get something straight: Black Lives DO Matter, the COVID pandemic is absolutely real, street sweeping is a horrendous boondoggle, and Van Hagar was better than Van Halen.

Taking all this into consideration, do you really believe the Green Mouse has anything to say at all in the nature of a post-mortem about the referendum?

That'd be plain dangerous. Following are a few headlines.

What budgetary crisis? Nawbany nickel-and-dimes 50K for the homeless, then awards $2.2 million in tax abatements for Sazarac NOD.

LIVE TO EAT: Those new clothes you're wearing, well, they're a tad threadbare. That's regrettable.

Councilman Phipps' future council meeting emergency reduction resolution is another Team Gahan mess. Can it be tossed out with the rubbish?

Floyd County DemoDisneyDixiecrats issue courageously mundane statement about racism, then return to fundraising.

COVID and COUNCIL -- or, GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 3 April.

One thing's for sure: There couldn't be any better time to be an agoraphobiac than a period defined by social distancing.

In other news, this week Mayor Jeff Gahan redefined the terms of pandemic-era engagement for the city's parks department, and also campaigned for masking.

And this:

After meeting with himself by fax, Gahan suspends curbside street sweeping until further notice.

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

Having granted the mayor's request for wide-ranging emergency powers, city council finds itself mostly, well, dismissed. At least one council member finds this situation disconcerting. Take it away, Josh Turner (5th district).

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In regards to the city council meeting being cancelled this upcoming Monday.

While I acknowledge the authority of New Albany City Council President Bob Caesar to cancel the council meeting that was scheduled for next Monday, I respectfully disagree with his decision and worry about the precedent it may set.

Thanks to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive order, we can meet electronically (as we did on the 27th), and, in the interest of transparency and accountability, we should take advantage of that ability.

As a result of Mr. Caesar’s decision to cancel, the third reading of the ordinance to appropriate riverboat funds to Catalyst Rescue Mission will be delayed. Mr. Caesar may not consider providing for homeless people to be essential business, but I do. Under the circumstances, I believe it is critical to the public health of not only our city, but to the public health of the entire the region. The pandemic has created significant, unforeseen expenses. Catalyst is on the front lines of the pandemic, helping some of the most vulnerable people in our community. 

Among other expenses, they have rented tents so they can separate their population according to health department guidelines. They are doing everything they can to help flatten the curve, and supporting their efforts should be a council priority.

For the next regularly scheduled council meeting, on April 16, I have requested that the following ESSENTIAL items be placed on the agenda.

1. I would like to have both the police and fire chiefs present to:

• a. Give a report to the council about their department’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including any impact on their budget.
• b. Detail plans for ensuring the ongoing readiness of both departments and for protecting the health and safety of officers and firefighters. My concern stems in part from what is happening in Indianapolis.
• c. Answer questions from the council.

2. I would like to have the controller present to provide a report on the budget implications of the pandemic, including additional costs and anticipated revenue issues. Evansville just cut its budget by $2.8 million, and we need to understand where we are and start planning appropriately. In addition, I would like for the controller to answer questions from the council.

After meeting with himself by fax, Gahan suspends curbside street sweeping until further notice.

This morning we joined the 5th district councilman in asking the Bored of Works, "Whither the useless street sweeper in this age of the pandemic?"

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

As if on cue, the administration unleashed previously withheld common sense, probably imported from an Indianapolis legal firm via Skype. The communications director must have blisters on his fingers. There have been more press releases in the past two weeks than during the last eight years.

Well, at least it can be done from home, via carrier pigeon. Social distancing is second nature to an agoraphobic.

CURBSIDE STREET SWEEPING Suspended Until Further Notice: With people being asked to follow the Governor’s Stay-at-Home order, more cars than ever are parked on city streets. Due to this, curbside street sweeping will be suspended until further notice so that residents do not have to worry about moving their cars. The city will resume this important service at a later date.

Oh, oh, oh ... it's magic, you know. Never believe it's not so.

It's magic, you know.

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

From a thousand years ago ... or 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

A few years back Bluegill perfectly summarized the prevailing idiocy:

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

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

Bluegill again:

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

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

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

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

Wednesday is street sweeping day at my address.

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

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

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

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

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

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A Baylor Paper on Street Sweeping.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Non-learning curve: This ON THE AVENUES column repeat reveals that since 2011, we've been discussing the safety hazards on Spring Street between 10th and 9th. Too bad City Hall is deaf.

Elsewhere today: If you want to know how Deaf Gahan purposefully botched the Speck plan for walkable streets, read this article. Hint: HWC dunnit.

I'm rethinking my weekly ON THE AVENUES column placement. It isn't going away, but it may be moving to a different time slot, and as I contemplate the options, hopefully you'll forgive a rerun or two.

This column from February 12, 2015 is a doubleheader of topicality. It addresses the ongoing foolishness of street sweeping, but more importantly, establishes a chronology with regard to the Spring Street safety hazard otherwise known as Williams Plumbing, located in a building at 901 E. Spring that seems always to teeter on the edge of an eyesore -- and has fallen off the edge on more than one occasion, as in 2016.

This outrage against innovative public art must be avenged -- or, what happened to the Williams Junk Water Heater Park?

Let's begin a block up the street. The spot where Spring Street curves at the intersection of 10th always has been a red flag, whether one-way or two-way. Drivers approaching westbound, completely unimpeded from the stop light (and railroad crossing) at 15th Street, have five full blocks to build up speed, and invariably navigate the curve too fast.

The problem isn't quite as bad eastbound, probably because the intersections at 7th Street (stop light) and 8th Street (major northbound connector) have a slowing effect.

Last year's two-way reversion, and the embarrassing placement of a completely useless pedestrian "beg button" crosswalk (a tiny, sad yellow light -- thanks, HWC Engineering) at precisely the point when westbound traffic reaches top speed, has done nothing to decrease westbound speeds around the curve.

Drivers simply drift to the right in order to make the curve, which means they're regularly straying into the (rumored) bicycle lane and unoccupied parking spaces. At times, they come very close to the sidewalk itself.

I see it often while walking -- something city officials should consider trying some time, if they can extricate themselves from Nanny Barksdale's "inhumane" working conditions.

Then, having driven too fast around a dangerous curve, drivers speedily approach 9th Street, where the tall Williams Plumbing trucks have been parked along the north side of the street for as long as anyone can remember, and often on the east side of 9th.

In the evening and on weekends, these trucks completely obscure the viewpoint of all users, whether traveling westbound on Spring or southbound on 9th.

By the way, municipal ordinance forbids parking commercial vehicles being parked curbside in this manner -- and as long as anyone can remember, this ordinance has not been enforced. 

To summarize, it's been seven years since this blog first mentioned the issue, and the problem was ongoing for quite some time even then.

It's very simple, folks. These conditions almost certainly played a part in skateboarder Matt Brewer's death, and irrespective of the role they played, these conditions are dangerous, not only to non-automotive users, but for drivers, too.

The intersection of Spring and 10th needs to be controlled, and those trucks from Williams Plumbing need to be removed.

If HWC Engineering's crack team of Speck Plan assassins couldn't grasp these plain facts in 2017, a refund is due the city. My neighborhood is sick and tired of the bullshit, wherein leaders and their chosen contractors duck responsibility.

If Team Gahan's sickening arrogance precludes admitting they made a mistake in allowing these obvious instances of negligence to continue unabated, then the clique needs to be cashiered in 2019.

Here's the column repeat from February, 2015. Note that in 2016, I began protesting the street sweeper violations ... and Team Gahan folded like the poseurs they are.

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ON THE AVENUES: Street “sweeping” epitomizes the degradation of governance in New Albany.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It’s an election year, and so the current occupant must hurriedly make up for three years of squandered time as it pertains to his unwillingness (read: sheer inability) to define various meaningless but oft-chanted mantras. Consequently, the street department chief has been ceremoniously trotted out to announce an expansion of the city’s street “sweeping” program.

Unfortunately, words have meaning, and ideas matter, and in New Albany, street “sweeping” has not ever been a cleanliness issue.

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

Bluegill perfectly summarizes the prevailing idiocy:

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

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

Bluegill again:

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

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

Amazingly, it gets worse. Since the inception of institutionalized parking enforcement hypocrisy during the waning years of the third England Error, there has not been the first clear indication of where this imaginary Green Line between enforced and non-enforced parking is drawn.

Following is a column originally published here on May 19, 2011, and repeated in 2013. That's almost four years of ongoing failure. How much longer before we undertake to resolve the parking issues downtown?

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The sweeping of municipal dysfunction is prohibited. That's the ordinance we actually enforce.

Yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday is street sweeping day on our side of the block.

A police operative customarily follows the street sweeper, because cars are not supposed to be parked on the street, where they obstruct the sweeper’s solemn duty to transfer rubbish from the curb into the center of the bicycle lane.

Recently, with the stated intent of promoting businesses (like my own) and sparing shoppers, diners and shop employees the hassle of thinking about where they park, City Hall publicly announced a moratorium on the enforcement of parking regulations “downtown.”

To my knowledge, downtown as a geographical construct was never specifically defined in this enforcement suspension context. My household is in Midtown, while Vincennes Street, only a few blocks away, now calls itself Uptown.

However, Develop New Albany only recently indicated that in the organization’s eyes, a stated organizational mandate to deal exclusively with downtown issues does not preclude it from expanding operations outward, into areas previously not regarded as such, implying that suddenly, we’re all downtowners.

Meanwhile, our residence in Midtown shares a driveway with a dental office. There used to be a day care business next door, and a doctor’s office further down. Big Value is on one corner of the block, opposite an ad agency office. On another corner, there is a funeral home, facing a fire and water damage repair shop.

That’s a fair number of businesses for a residential block -- and I’m not even counting meth labs.

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Yesterday, although I knew the street sweeper was coming, I left my car parked on the street. I wanted to see what would happen.

Leaving the usual pathway of uncollected dirt in its wake, the sweeper swerved to avoid my car, and the police functionary promptly ticketed me. Moments later, I climbed into the car and drove to my meeting, westbound on Spring Street, where I caught up to the sweeper and the tailing police officer.

Other parked cars were obstructing the sweeper’s progress, but they were not ticketed, presumably because an invisible line of demarcation had been passed, and the weekly shifting of muck and butts from curb to street was occurring within the “downtown” area, where the moratorium of non-enforcement was in effect to promote businesses ... that's right, businesses just like the ones on my block, where the rules against sweeper obstruction are being enforced, or at the very least, where tickets are being written, whether not there is any intent to collect the fines.

I got the ticket, and I’ll pay the fine.

The question: Why should I?

When there is a stated policy of non-enforcement within areas that are only vaguely defined, what is the rationale for enforcement elsewhere?

Anywhere?

If the rationale for non-enforcement downtown (whatever that really means) is the proximity of businesses, shouldn’t that rationale apply throughout the city?

If downtowners who have serially refused to pay their parking fines for decades announce their evasive intentions on local television, and are not prosecuted immediately, why should I feel any obligation whatsoever to drop my twenty-spot in the slot?

Yet, I do. It’s something in my upbringing. Granted, that’s twenty fewer clams to be deposited with local businesses downtown, but heck, I just consider it a token of my esteem for a New Albanian process so random, convoluted and inexplicable that it nostalgically reminds me of the feudal nonsense prevalent in Old Albania.

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Neighborhoods lying in, outside or near downtown, depending on today’s variable definition of downtown, historically have served as laboratories for non-enforcement of a different variety.

Slumlord empowerment blocs and the occasional derelict private dwelling have freely ignored basic codes pertaining to building appearance, sanitation and safety, and pretend-leaders have abetted the extractive shtick.

Nowadays, the city seem to be doing a slightly better job of it, although there always seems to be greater interest in the last resort of demolishing those properties allowed to deteriorate through previous non-enforcement regimes. Little time is devoted to filling the holes left behind, but then again, this is New Albany: One thing at a time, please, and you’d best give us five or six years to accomplish it.

Like basic exterior repairs. I’m continually amazed by prominent examples of neglect that go completely unaddressed. Almost every day, I walk or bike past Williams Plumbing* on the northeast corner of E. Spring and 9th. If I’m not mistaken, long ago it was Cora Shrader’s Shoppe, a nicely maintained corner property.

Now it is a scantily maintained, increasingly dilapidated eyesore used exclusively for what amounts to industrial storage. Extreme weather over a period of years has torn hunks of siding away from both sides of the house, exposing the wood.

Worse, the company’s big trucks tend to be parked right on Spring Street, consistently impeding the view of motorists approaching southbound on 9th.

Do these trucks get ticketed when they block the street sweeper, or does the invisible, undefined, non-enforcement Green Line come into play?

Is it downtown or midtown?

Lowdown, or down low?

If there is ticketing, does Williams Plumbing pay the tickets?

Can a building crying out for code enforcement scrutiny be any more prominently located than this one, or do the code enforcers just shut their eyes two dozen times a day while driving past it?

If readers can answer any of these questions, they’ll enter a drawing for a $175,000, studio-sized condo overlooking the river … in downtown Tirana, Old Albania. Play your cards right, and the neighborhood Mullah might save you a parking space.

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* Williams Plumbing finally repaired the exterior in 2012. The trucks continue to block sight lines at 9th and Spring.

ASK THE BORED: They're busy panicking after the Great Break Wind Fire, so we celebrate the guy who first patented a self-propelled street sweeper.

Who even knew that World Sweeper Dot Com is "Earth’s Largest Power Sweeping Resource"? Folks, that's powerful medicine indeed. Let's take a look at one of the faces on street sweeping's Mt. Rushmore.

Charles B. Brooks Patented One of the First Self-Propelled Street Sweepers (World Sweeper)

A black man from Newark, New Jersey, Charles B. Brooks, invented the U.S.' first self-propelled street sweeper truck and patented it on March 17, 1896.

Yes, soon it will be street scamming (oops, I mean "sweeping") season again, so let's take a look at one strategy for fighting a citation.

Here's what I did to beat the "blocking street sweeper" citation scam. Why should anyone pay?

Below, you'll see the parking dispute form I filed, and the argument I used, which in essence is this.

When enforcement of ordinances is purposefully random, how can there be penalties against those cited randomly?

You'll notice that Shane Gibson, to whom this form was submitted, did not attempt to answer my question. City Hall is silent. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

ASK THE BORED: "People go WAY too fast and even turn up the wrong way on Elm. There needs to be a 4-way stop at this intersection before someone gets killed."

Maybe this one from last Thursday?

I just saw an interesting thing on Market Street: the street sweeper with an unmarked car in front of it, an unmarked car behind it, and a traffic division cop car behind that. It was a convoy just for the street sweeper.

That's odd, seeing there are no bike lanes on Market for the street sweepers to shift debris into. Are we militarizing street sweeping? I've heard it's a trend. Or, perhaps aquatic revenues are down, and increased parking citations are necessary to balance the ol' budget -- but can't we just TIF it?

Here's what I did to beat the "blocking street sweeper" citation scam. Why should anyone pay?

This one from Saturday hits (literally) a bit closer to my house.

There was a pretty bad wreck on Elm and 13th this morning. This is not the first time since I've lived around here. It is VERY hard to see around the parked cars if you're crossing over Elm. That being said, there are 4-way stop signs every couple blocks down Elm until you get down this way. People go WAY too fast and even turn up the wrong way on Elm. There needs to be a 4-way stop at this intersection before someone gets killed. Kids (and adults) cross this intersection all the time. So how do we get this done?

I'll bring it up this morning, though in the most general of senses, making Elm Street safer starts here, with this comment by Jeff Speck, from his Downtown Street Network Proposal.

Because one-way streets provide passing lanes and eliminate opposing traffic, they encourage higher-speed driving and create a more highway-like environment for properties along them ... there is no justification for a one-way Elm Street east of State Street, since it contains ample width for two-way traffic, which will provide greater utility and safety than the current condition.

As for the utility of four-way stop signs ... Speck again.

Research now suggests that four-way stop signs, which require motorists to approach each intersection as a negotiation, turn out to be much safer than signals. Unlike at signalized intersections, there is considerable eye-contact among users. Drivers slow down, but never have to wait for more than a few seconds, and pedestrians and bicyclists are generally waved through first.

As with other such observations, the truth of the matter is that the only way to get this/anything done is for the city of New Albany to grasp the reality of the problem, and in the past, the Board of Public Works and Safety has squirmed every which way but loose when it comes to denying the problem of speeding on Elm.

So, let's ask again. The series introduction is reprinted below. From last week:

From roadway bomb craters to pedestrian death investigations: This morning's Board of Public Works and Safety meeting -- with the undermanned newspaper AWOL.

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New Albany's Board of Public Works and Safety exists because the State of Indiana says so.

IC 36-4-9-5

Board of public works and safety; establishment Sec. 5.

(a) A board of public works and safety is established in each city.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a), the legislative body of a second class city may by ordinance establish as separate boards: (1) a board of public works; and (2) a board of public safety; to perform the functions of the board of public works and safety.

As added by Acts 1980, P.L.212, SEC.3.

As for what the board is supposed to do each Tuesday at 10:00 a.m., you can visit the American Legal Publishing site, search "Board of Public Works and Safety," and sift through various powers accorded the board over the decades by dint of ordinance.

Exactly how much power does our Board of Public Works and Safety possess?

If Jeff Gahan were to stray from the protection of his Down Low Bunker and comment, no doubt he would assert that the board has just the power it needs. He handpicked it, and he's perfectly content to see his program implemented by non-elected boards, as opposed to elected officials.

According to Dan Coffey, the answer surely is "too much." At the city council meeting of June 6, Coffey proposed that our council, as a body made up of elected members, should take back authority ceded to non-elected boards.

Agreed.

The Board of Public Works and Safety may be established by state, not city, and it may be appointed by mayor, not council, but the board's powers appear to derive from the legislative body.

I mention all this as prelude to a new feature at NA Confidential: Ask the Bored.

It has long been NA Confidential's position that given the board's accumulated powers -- justified or  otherwise -- and its current function as arbiter of myriad conditions that impact the lives of citizens, for it to hold all its meetings at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday meeting is an affront (note that during the Garner Administration, a fledgling but doomed effort to democratize meeting times was made).

However, NAC can attend many, if not all, meetings. Public speaking time is allowed, and on occasion in the past, we've used it for the precise purpose of making comments, raising issues or asking questions, so that these are included in meeting minutes and become part of the public record. This way, it cannot be claimed later that "no one said anything."

Readers, I know you have questions. Many of you cannot attend these meetings, and so when possible, NAC will ask them for you. Generalized questions probably are best, but give us the brief, and we'll do what we can. Submit them at mayorbaylor@gmail.com ... and ask the bored.

Here's what I did to beat the "blocking street sweeper" citation scam. Why should anyone pay?

Yesterday I received an e-mail from the clerk's office informing me that my citation for blocking the street sweeper, issued eight months ago, has been voided.

Below, you'll see the parking dispute form I filed, and the argument I used, which in essence is this.

When enforcement of ordinances is purposefully random, how can there be penalties against those cited randomly?

You'll notice that Shane Gibson, to whom this form was submitted, did not attempt to answer my question. City Hall is silent. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The cost of this citation when paid late is $70. Today I'll be rounding this sum to $75 and using it to buy three shares in next week's Fresh Stop Market, to be donated to folks who need the produce.

Learn more and get on board the Fresh Stop Market -- a “pop up” farm-fresh food market, coming next week.

Meanwhile, here's the citation's paper trail.

When enforcement is purposefully selective, why should anyone pay a fine?

Parking Ticket Dispute
Date: Thu, June 9, 2016 09:57

Good morning Mr. Baylor,

Ticket number 5030013682, that was issued to license plate number IN-914NEU, has been voided. If I can be of any further assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Have a wonderful day!

Cathy Cousins
Customer Service, City Clerk’s Office

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

Wednesday is street sweeping day at my address.

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

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

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

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

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

---

A Baylor Paper on Street Sweeping.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Baylor for Mayor

VOTE INDEPENDENT ON NOVEMBER 3, 2015

BaylorforMayor.com
Follow us at facebook.com/BaylorForMayor
Email at mayorbaylor@gmail.com
Campaign Phone (812) 944-3617

Editorial cartoon: Sweeping it all away.

Chim chiminey

Chim chiminey

Chim chim cher-ee!

A sweep is as lucky

As lucky can be

ON THE AVENUES: Street “sweeping” epitomizes the degradation of governance in New Albany.

ON THE AVENUES: Street “sweeping” epitomizes the degradation of governance in New Albany.

ON THE AVENUES: Street “sweeping” epitomizes the degradation of governance in New Albany.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

It’s an election year, and so the current occupant must hurriedly make up for three years of squandered time as it pertains to his unwillingness (read: sheer inability) to define various meaningless but oft-chanted mantras. Consequently, the street department chief has been ceremoniously trotted out to announce an expansion of the city’s street “sweeping” program.

Unfortunately, words have meaning, and ideas matter, and in New Albany, street “sweeping” has not ever been a cleanliness issue.

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

Bluegill perfectly summarizes the prevailing idiocy:

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

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

Bluegill again:

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

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

Amazingly, it gets worse. Since the inception of institutionalized parking enforcement hypocrisy during the waning years of the third England Error, there has not been the first clear indication of where this imaginary Green Line between enforced and non-enforced parking is drawn.

Following is a column originally published here on May 19, 2011, and repeated in 2013. That's almost four years of ongoing failure. How much longer before we undertake to resolve the parking issues downtown?

---

The sweeping of municipal dysfunction is prohibited. That's the ordinance we actually enforce.

Yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday is street sweeping day on our side of the block.

A police operative customarily follows the street sweeper, because cars are not supposed to be parked on the street, where they obstruct the sweeper’s solemn duty to transfer rubbish from the curb into the center of the bicycle lane.

Recently, with the stated intent of promoting businesses (like my own) and sparing shoppers, diners and shop employees the hassle of thinking about where they park, City Hall publicly announced a moratorium on the enforcement of parking regulations “downtown.”

To my knowledge, downtown as a geographical construct was never specifically defined in this enforcement suspension context. My household is in Midtown, while Vincennes Street, only a few blocks away, now calls itself Uptown.

However, Develop New Albany only recently indicated that in the organization’s eyes, a stated organizational mandate to deal exclusively with downtown issues does not preclude it from expanding operations outward, into areas previously not regarded as such, implying that suddenly, we’re all downtowners.

Meanwhile, our residence in Midtown shares a driveway with a dental office. There used to be a day care business next door, and a doctor’s office further down. Big Value is on one corner of the block, opposite an ad agency office. On another corner, there is a funeral home, facing a fire and water damage repair shop.

That’s a fair number of businesses for a residential block -- and I’m not even counting meth labs.

---

Yesterday, although I knew the street sweeper was coming, I left my car parked on the street. I wanted to see what would happen.

Leaving the usual pathway of uncollected dirt in its wake, the sweeper swerved to avoid my car, and the police functionary promptly ticketed me. Moments later, I climbed into the car and drove to my meeting, westbound on Spring Street, where I caught up to the sweeper and the tailing police officer.

Other parked cars were obstructing the sweeper’s progress, but they were not ticketed, presumably because an invisible line of demarcation had been passed, and the weekly shifting of muck and butts from curb to street was occurring within the “downtown” area, where the moratorium of non-enforcement was in effect to promote businesses ... that's right, businesses just like the ones on my block, where the rules against sweeper obstruction are being enforced, or at the very least, where tickets are being written, whether not there is any intent to collect the fines.

I got the ticket, and I’ll pay the fine.

The question: Why should I?

When there is a stated policy of non-enforcement within areas that are only vaguely defined, what is the rationale for enforcement elsewhere?

Anywhere?

If the rationale for non-enforcement downtown (whatever that really means) is the proximity of businesses, shouldn’t that rationale apply throughout the city?

If downtowners who have serially refused to pay their parking fines for decades announce their evasive intentions on local television, and are not prosecuted immediately, why should I feel any obligation whatsoever to drop my twenty-spot in the slot?

Yet, I do. It’s something in my upbringing. Granted, that’s twenty fewer clams to be deposited with local businesses downtown, but heck, I just consider it a token of my esteem for a New Albanian process so random, convoluted and inexplicable that it nostalgically reminds me of the feudal nonsense prevalent in Old Albania.

---

Neighborhoods lying in, outside or near downtown, depending on today’s variable definition of downtown, historically have served as laboratories for non-enforcement of a different variety.

Slumlord empowerment blocs and the occasional derelict private dwelling have freely ignored basic codes pertaining to building appearance, sanitation and safety, and pretend-leaders like the soon-to-be-mercifully-retired Steve Price have abetted the extractive shtick.

Nowadays, the city seem to be doing a slightly better job of it, although there always seems to be greater interest in the last resort of demolishing those properties allowed to deteriorate through previous non-enforcement regimes. Little time is devoted to filling the holes left behind, but then again, this is New Albany: One thing at a time, please, and you’d best give us five or six years to accomplish it.

Like basic exterior repairs. I’m continually amazed by prominent examples of neglect that go completely unaddressed. Almost every day, I walk or bike past Williams Plumbing* on the northeast corner of E. Spring and 9th. If I’m not mistaken, long ago it was Cora Shrader’s Shoppe, a nicely maintained corner property.

Now it is a scantily maintained, increasingly dilapidated eyesore used exclusively for what amounts to industrial storage. Extreme weather over a period of years has torn hunks of siding away from both sides of the house, exposing the wood. Worse, the company’s big trucks tend to be parked right on Spring Street, consistently impeding the view of motorists approaching southbound on 9th.

Do these trucks get ticketed when they block the street sweeper, or does the invisible, undefined, non-enforcement Green Line come into play?

Is it downtown or midtown?

Lowdown, or down low?

If there is ticketing, does Williams Plumbing pay the tickets?

Can a building crying out for code enforcement scrutiny be any more prominently located than this one, or do the code enforcers just shut their eyes two dozen times a day while driving past it?

If readers can answer any of these questions, they’ll enter a drawing for a $175,000, studio-sized condo overlooking the river … in downtown Tirana, Old Albania. Play your cards right, and the neighborhood Mullah might save you a parking space.


* Williams Plumbing finally repaired the exterior in 2012. The trucks continue to block sight lines at 9th and Spring. 

A trail of leaf crumbs to find its way home, but kudos for the effort.

Last year, the city never really got around to removing leaves, and it may have been the fault of the weather in the form of early snowfalls. This season, I've noticed the efforts, and they are appreciated.

The last two Wednesdays in October, Spring Street wasn't swept. Who cleans up the sawdust and debris, anyway?

Stemler on road-pounding trucks: “A (truck) carrying 20 tons of asphalt or crushed stone – we're taxing (the Clark Memorial Bridge) an awful lot."

Yesterday: One Southern Indiana's hypocrisy is absolutely reprehensible.

To Kerry Stemler, hypocrisy is an art form.

He is a soul-crushing oligarchic corporate criminal suitable for tarring and feathering, or worse.

And these "road-pounding" trucks ... the many trucks belonging to Stemler's own businesses and those of his fellow regional wealth extractors?

Naturally, they need to be kept off the toll rolls, and also off the Clark Memorial Bridge, but are just fine and dandy when speedily rerouted through residential streets in New Albany ... which like the bridge, were not constructed for the use of such vehicles, which is why their presence preferably comes with the full cooperation of New Albany's OWN ELECTED GOVERNMENT, which is happy (or sufficiently clueless) to oblige with nary a peep.

Louisville chamber chair backs commercial truck ban on Clark Memorial Bridge, by Marcus Green (WDRB)

... Besides his GLI position, Stemler sits on the boards of the Finance Authority and a six-person panel in charge of the bridges project's toll policy. In an interview, he said he plans to use his influence to push for several other ideas included in Dant Chesser's letter.

Specifically, Stemler said he also favors reclassifying certain heavy vehicles to avoid the toll rates charged to tractor trailers and exempting Transit Authority of River City buses from tolls.

Notice the deft public transit touch. Fortunately, we have plenty of old masonry walls hereabouts ready to be pressed into service following the show trial.

Bluegill provides the coda, as posted yesterday:

Today is street sweeping day in front of our house-- you know, spend hour after hour writing tickets penalizing residents for minute, non-moving infractions while thousands of cars and large trucks whiz through their neighborhood at 45 mph day. As such, residents crammed all their cars onto the side street to avoid the harassment. With said cars parked on both sides, the folks profiting from the Main Street Bicycle Denial Project placed their barricade right in the middle of the street so no one could get out without backing up down half the street and turning into the glass strewn alley where the street sweeper might actually be useful but never goes. I moved the barricade. Will again tomorrow. It's come to that.

Yes, it has come to that -- with New Albany's streets, and on Kerry Stemler's pet bridges, and the best strategies for coping with both have narrowed to calculated, principled civil disobedience. It may be the best single mayoral campaign idea for 2015.

But wait ... what was that?

You can't see how it is possible for a government sworn to uphold law to instead express disobedience?

Come now.

It hasn't been that long since Doug England publicly announced that he wouldn't enforce his own parking regulations. England didn't strike them, but merely renounced their enforcement. The ordinances remain on the books, and the city continues to ignore its own laws.

As we speak, I suspect those same heavy trucks that inspire throbbing erections on the part of the likes of Kerry Stemler are being exempted from speeding enforcement in New Albany, and I'll continue to believe it until someone within our close-mouthed City Hall proves to me otherwise. If the local chain newspaper can't or won't ask the questions, I will.  

Isn't it an act of willful civil disobedience for a sitting mayor not to enforce the city's own ordinances? If not, then what exactly is it?

Consequently, to campaign for the office of mayor on an explicit platform of civic disobedience as it pertains to matters like one-way streets and Stemler's auto-erotic tolling project strikes me as the most ethical choice available to a candidate.

Apart from drinking beer, that is. I vow to achieve that, too.

Street sweeping begins on April Fool's Day. Selective enforcement? That's every day.

On which side of the green line do you park?

Trouble is, no one  -- board of works, police or politicians -- will tell us where to draw the green line that demarcates enforcement and non-enforcement.

If you live on my house's side of the line, tickets are issued for blocking the street sweeper. If you live on the other side, nearer the epicenter, where parking is so crucially important that we've removed all value from it, you'll receive no ticket for leaving your car in the same spot the remainder of the summer.

Always remember: Doug England established this precedent of selective non-enforcement. If and when he runs for mayor again, ask him why he did it and how on earth it helps to have tickets one place and not in another, when no one knows which spot is which.

And then there's this: Why is selective enforcement still the policy of the Gahan administration, which in large measure came into being owing to disgruntlement with Hizzoner's third term?

There is April Fool's Day, and then there's every other day of the year. The punch line: When it comes to selective enforcement, every day is the same, and we're all fools for tolerating it.

ON THE AVENUES: Municipal dysfunction sweeping (still) prohibited.

ON THE AVENUES: Municipal dysfunction sweeping (still) prohibited.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Soon it will be street sweeping season again, and a sad weekly reminder of the city's historic tendency not only to tolerate law enforcement iniquities, but to institutionalize them. Last night, after the Merchant Mixer meeting at around 8 p.m., I saw a nighttime employee of a downtown retail business walking to his truck, which was parked on the corner of Market and Pearl. He plucked something from the cab, and returned to his shop. Assuming a five or six hour shift, his truck may well have taken the space of a downtown customer's vehicle, one per hour. Does it make any sense not to issue citations under such circumstances, when a Spring Street resident's car parked in the wrong place for five minutes during street sweeping season is issued a ticket? The following column originally was published on May 19, 2011. Only last year did Williams Plumbing finally clean up its building. How much longer before we undertake to resolve the parking issues downtown? Here's a clue: If it's free, is there any value to it?  

---

Yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday is street sweeping day on our side of the block.

A policeman customarily follows the street sweeper, because cars are not supposed to be parked on the street, where they obstruct the sweeper’s solemn duty to transfer rubbish from the curb into the center of the bicycle lane.

Recently, with the stated intent of promoting businesses (like my own) and sparing shoppers, diners and shop employees the hassle of parking tickets, City Hall publicly announced a moratorium on the enforcement of parking regulations “downtown.”

To my knowledge, downtown as a geographical construct was never specifically defined in this enforcement suspension context. My household belongs to the Midtown Neighborhood Association, and the former Shooter’s tavern on Vincennes Street, only a few blocks away, now calls itself the Uptown.

However, Develop New Albany recently indicated that in the organization’s eyes, a stated organizational mandate to deal exclusively with downtown issues did not preclude it from expanding operations outward, into areas previously not regarded as such, implying that suddenly, we’re all downtowners.

(Applause)

Meanwhile, our residence in Midtown shares a driveway with a dental office. There used to be a day care business next door, and a doctor’s office further down. Big Value is on one corner of the block, opposite an ad agency office. On another corner, there is a funeral home, facing a fire and water damage repair shop. That’s a fair number of businesses for a residential block -- and I’m not even counting meth labs.

---

Yesterday, although I knew the street sweeper was coming, I left my car parked on the street. I wanted to see what would happen.

Leaving the usual pathway of dirt in its wake, the sweeper swerved to avoid my car, and the policeman promptly ticketed me. Moments later, I climbed into the car and drove to my meeting, westbound on Spring Street, where I caught up to the sweeper and the tailing police officer.

Other parked cars were obstructing the sweeper’s progress, but they were not ticketed, presumably because an invisible line of demarcation had been passed, and now the weekly shifting of muck and butts from curb to street was occurring within the “downtown” area, where the moratorium of non-enforcement was in effect to promote businesses.

Or, businesses just like the ones on my block, where the rules against sweeper obstruction are being enforced, or at the very least, where tickets are being written, whether not there is any intent to collect the fines.

I got the ticket, and I’ll pay the fine.

The question: Why should I?

When there is a stated policy of non-enforcement within areas that are only vaguely defined, what is the rationale for enforcement elsewhere?

If the rationale for non-enforcement downtown (whatever that means) is the proximity of businesses, shouldn’t that rationale apply throughout the city?

If downtowners who have serially refused to pay their parking fines for decades announce their evasive intentions on local television, and are not prosecuted immediately, why should I feel any obligation whatsoever to drop my twenty-spot in the slot?

Yet, I do. It’s something in my upbringing. Granted, that’s twenty fewer clams to be deposited with local businesses downtown, but heck, I just consider it a token of my esteem for a New Albanian process so random, convoluted and inexplicable that it nostalgically reminds me of the feudal nonsense prevalent in Old Albania.

---

Neighborhoods lying in, outside or near downtown, depending on today’s variable definition of downtown, historically have served as laboratories for non-enforcement of a different variety.

Slumlord empowerment blocs and the occasional derelict private dwelling have freely ignored basic codes pertaining to building appearance, sanitation and safety, and pretend-leaders like the soon-to-be-mercifully-retired Steve Price have abetted the shtick.

Nowadays, the city seem to be doing a slightly better job of it, although there always seems to be greater interest in the last resort of demolishing properties allowed to deteriorate through previous non-enforcement regimes. Little time is devoted to filling the holes left behind, but then again, this is New Albany: One thing at a time, please, and you’d best give us five or six years to accomplish it.

Like basic exterior repairs. I’m continually amazed by prominent examples of neglect that go completely unaddressed.

Almost every day, I walk or bike past Williams Plumbing on the northeast corner of E. Spring and 9th. If I’m not mistaken, long ago it was Cora Shrader’s Shoppe, a nicely maintained corner property.

Now it is a scantily maintained, increasingly dilapidated eyesore used exclusively for what amounts to industrial storage. Extreme weather over a period of years has torn hunks of siding away from both sides of the house, exposing the wood. Worse, the company’s big trucks tend to be parked right on Spring Street, consistently impeding the view of motorists approaching southbound on 9th.

Do these trucks get ticketed when they block the street sweeper, or does the invisible, undefined, non-enforcement Green Line come into play?

Is it downtown or midtown?

Lowdown, or down low?

If there is ticketing, does Williams Plumbing pay the tickets?

Can a building crying out for code enforcement scrutiny be any more prominently located than this one, or do the code enforcers just shut their eyes two dozen times a day while driving past it?

If readers can answer any of these questions, they’ll enter a drawing for a $175,000, studio-sized condo overlooking the river … in downtown Tirana, Old Albania. Play your cards right, and the neighborhood Mullah might save you a parking space.

To sweep or not to sweep.

That's because we pretend to sweep the streets during this time, except that we don't clean streets, we clean the area just next to the curb -- when it actually gets cleaned.

But it wasn't done today, nor last week, if memory serves, meaning that the ticketing regime is entirely random -- although at the same time, a bit further down the street, toward downtown, there still is no ticketing at all for parking violations.

As an ironic postscript, I just looked outside and saw the curbside area completely swept clean ... by this afternoon's storm water.

Five questions: Why are we tolerating selective enforcement?

My neighbor is a dentist, and the vehicle ticketed yesterday (for blocking the street "sweeper") is one of his customers.

Some time back, former mayor Doug England told downtown merchants (I'm one) that he'd help them by suspending enforcement of parking rules, and so downtown, the ticket shown above is not being issued, even though there's a new mayor and a new team.

And yet the dentist's office is a business, too, and so are many others in the city which are not located downtown.

1. What is the status of parking enforcement downtown?

2. Is it official city policy that some businesses are more deserving of assistance than others?

3. Why is street "sweeping" a sacred cow, anyway?

4. What status is enjoyed by the enforcement officers (shown above), and are they actual police or some form of adjunct?

5. Can we expect any of these questions to be answered prior to 2013?