Last night at city council, the News and Tribune looked the other way as McLaughlin condoned Duggins' TASER hilarity.

My frustrations with local media's coddling, in a nutshell.

New Albany City Council adjusts some parking fines, by Chris Morris (Sweet Home Alabama)

Haven House receives $50,000 appropriation

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany City Council made some amendments to parking violations Monday night. Motorists can expect higher fines and to be towed for parking in an intersection, blocking a fire hydrant or crosswalk, parking on a sidewalk and parking illegally in a handicap space.

It's the usual by-the-numbers council coverage, and that's just lovely -- until someone who was present volunteers to fill in the missing bits.

By the way, Mark Cassidy attended last evening.

"At city council mtg. Pat making excuses for David Duggins. Al and David A. both had strong statements condemning such comments by an official."

Making excuses for Duggins' TASER misbehavior?

Cluelessly normalizing ugliness of this magnitude might be the default reaction of almost any ranking Democrat in town, but in this instance, it's 4th district's Pat "Methodical" McLaughlin, formerly the council president, now as ever joined to Mayor Jeff Gahan's swiveling hip in a surely forlorn hope that (a) Dear Leader might opt for the monastery some sweet day, and (b) McLaughlin then could become the biggest fish in this painfully small pond.

(Interestingly, Gahan didn't fight at all for Bob Caesar's bid to become council president in 2018; Caesar lost, and now his sinecure on the Redevelopment Commission has ended, too. Perhaps this is Gahan's pleasant way of saying "sorry, Bob, but your own mayoral ambitions just ain't happening.") 

I asked Mark to elaborate on the public vetting of Duggins on Monday night.

Al (Knable) brought it up at the beginning of the meeting. He said he'd talked to the Mayor about it, and also talked to Duggins. Knable thought it was totally inappropriate, but the person harmed is the only one who can accept Duggins' apology or not. He didn't think anyone should lose their job over it. David Aebersold wanted to know if Duggins now was on a short leash (paraphrased), suggesting that Duggins can't screw up again and still represent New Albany. Knable said yes. Next Aebersold stated that he's received far more e-mails and calls about this (TASER hilarity) episode than anything else since he's been on the council, and he didn't want to go through any of it again. I believe that if it had been up to Aebersold, he would've fired Duggins. After that is when Pat made his milquetoast defense.

And exactly how spineless was it, Mark?

Pat said "familiarity" probably was the reason Duggins said what he did, and that we all make comments that we shouldn't. 

Mark concludes with a concise thought, one that every DemoDisneyDixiecrat should read, reread and read again.

True, but that doesn't excuse it, especially not coming from an official with control over peoples' lives.

On second thought, it might interest a newspaper's editorial board, too. That is, if the newspaper ever gets around to taking its Fourth Estate obligations seriously.

Cue the inevitable Valentine's Day poll and chocolate pairing.

Here's where a newspaper reporter might start -- because see, there was a discussion at a council meeting about a tawdry lapse by a public official, at which it was divulged that the council's current president has discussed the issue with the mayor, who as yet has had nothing to say about it.

Here's an idea, Chris.

Shouldn't you go talk to the mayor, too?

Week in review: Jeff Gahan created the Duggins debacle at NAHA, so stop normalizing his efforts to remain aloof.

This week's coverage:

BREAKING: Keith Henderson will not file criminal charges against David Duggins for threatening a resident of public housing.

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

David Duggins' TASER fetish: Hoosier Action has the lowdown, as Mayor Jeff Gahan remains hunkered in the down low bunker.

Team Gahan circles the wagons as David "Knucksie" Duggins' TASER fetish becomes the big story today at the News and Tribune.

Duggins releases new New Albany Housing Authority logo, picks up a sixer of Bud Light Lime, heads out to the TASER range to shoot a few ... rounds.

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

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

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

(Randy Smith provided significant assistance in writing today’s column)

---

At last.

It took a few days, but finally a local journalist has gotten around to covering an important story about the inexcusable abuse of power by a public official.

Jtown Attorney To Thieneman: “I’ll Do My Damned Level Best To Break Your Neck”,by Rick Redding (Louisville KY)

Jeffersontown city attorney Schuyler Olt ignited a firestorm of controversy Jan. 23 when he started an online fight with Chris Thieneman over the treatment of police in the media.

The post that started the brouhaha by Thieneman was simply a screen shot of a story by Joe Gerth in the Courier-Journal headlined, “Police must root out racist officers.” It concerned Prospect police officer Todd Shaw’s racist remarks that led to his firing.

Olt, who claims on his Facebook page to be a minister at Carlisle Presbyterian Church, responded first with a comment claiming that Shaw’s behavior was “horrible” but adding that the job is stressful. The two traded comments until Olt ended that part of the discussion with “You, quite frankly, kinda suck” ...

… The most damaging comment from Olt came later. Thieneman took a screen shot of the damaging post, which Olt has since deleted. It amounts to “terroristic threatening” as defined by Kentucky law: KRS 508.080(1)(a) covers the most commonly encountered form of terroristic threatening and requires (1) a threat to commit any crime, which is (2) likely to result in death, serious physical injury, or substantial property damage to another person. “Crime” means any misdemeanor or felony.

Here is that comment: “I’ll do my damned level best to break your neck.”

Olt eventually apologized for his threats, saying his anger got the best of him. Thieneman called for Olt’s resignation; after all, can Olt be trusted any longer to tame his anger?

There’s a line in the sand, and when a public official pole-vaults over it, an apology simply isn’t enough. Rather, we see the misbehavior as clearly marking the transgressor as temperamentally unfit for the job; if he or she also is professionally and intellectually unsuited for the job, then it’s an even easier call.

At least Olt actually appears to be an attorney, although it remains to be seen if the business of preaching is best served by the use of brass knuckles as opposed to Bibles.

And this brings us to Monday’s eventful meeting of the Synod of Sanctimonious Sycophancy, otherwise known as the New Albany Housing Authority’s handpicked board of current and former Gahan for Mayor campaign donors.

This is very serious, indeed.

---

After the board’s Monday meeting, David Duggins threatened a client by suggesting that a New Albany police officer “shoot” the client, who is a resident of a New Albany Housing Authority (NAHA) property.

In the meeting, Duggins -- appointed on an interim and well-remunerated basis last year by New Albany mayor Jeff Gahan to direct the affairs of the annexed housing authority -- was challenged by a spokesman for We Are New Albany, the activist group seeking to prevent an announced program to demolish publicly owned properties and to reduce the number of clients served by as much as half.

Duggins offered a lengthy defense, which was videotaped and shared on social media by Brandon Brown, a resident, a client, and the Vice President of We Are New Albany.

(This writer, too, is a member of that organization.)

By late Monday, I had been made aware of the incident and by mid-day on Tuesday had verified the events to the best of my ability.

The question arises: Did Duggins threaten Brown? Did whatever Duggins say cause Brown to feel threatened?

Brown had just videotaped Duggins’ very public speech, which dripped with condescension. It was less a reply to a question than a self-aggrandizing polemic. There is no dispute that Duggins is annoyed with, if not dismissive of the We Are New Albany group.

Brown was holding a conversation with the city police officer assigned to NAHA, Officer Schneider, when Duggins interrupted from across the room: “Brandon, are you on my side?”

Duggins approached Brown and Schneider, then said that if Brown were to videotape a meeting again, Officer Schneider should shoot him (Brown).

Brown was startled at the casual, offhanded violence of the instruction, which Duggins promptly amended: “Well, just shoot him with your Taser,” the interim director told Schneider.

(In the vernacular, Schneider was told to use his law-enforcement-approved Taser™, or generic “tazer,” to inflict an electric shock designed to temporarily disable Brown.)

Subsequently and outside the building, Brown approached an acquaintance and told her what had happened. As she looked on, Duggins ran hurriedly from the building, yelling “You know it was just a joke, right?”

Officer Schneider is not strictly under the direction of Duggins, to be sure. He is a sworn officer under the direction of the New Albany Police Department. Yet, his current job is full-time service to NAHA properties, and it’s reasonable to believe that both Brown and Schneider felt that Duggins, as the mayor’s appointee, would be able to exert at least some compulsion toward Officer Schneider.

In any event, Schneider did not rebuke Duggins. The threat was retroactively diminished, almost certainly because both Duggins and Schneider knew it was, at a minimum, completely inappropriate – and this recognition came within a few minutes of the interaction.

Did Brown feel threatened? Did he believe Duggins could direct retaliation toward him? Brown says with certainty that he did, on both counts, and the tone of Duggins’ laughter suggested the interim director was intrigued with the idea of hurting him.

I believe him. Three days later, is Brown safe?

We can’t know for sure. It worries me. He has filed an incident report with the NAPD. He has filed a complaint with the mayor’s office. The Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has been informed of the incident. Assistance and counsel from civil rights attorneys have been sought. And Duggins’ employers, the board of directors, have certainly been informed in anticipation of a formal complaint.

Context does matter. Brown is a vocal and visible opponent of the mayor’s plan to demolish public housing. He is not a “buddy” of Duggins. In fact, as a client, he and his family are vulnerable to myriad actions that could affect his well-being.

I’ve spoken to Brown and others this week. There is no question that Duggins’ instruction was inappropriate. None. Zilch. Nada.

But it raised a question in my mind – a question that has dominated public discussion for several months. What is inappropriate behavior and what is the proper consequence to mitigate it?

Imagine for just a moment that Duggins had made a crudely sexual suggestion to a client, then downgraded it just a bit from, let’s say, sex to groping, only then to come back at the client to say it was only a joke.

Would a man or woman be within their rights to complain?

The question now must be put to Mayor Gahan. Is this type of conduct to be tolerated in city government? Isn’t this something that requires a public response? Does the city have a zero-tolerance policy for threats of violence, sexual assault, abuse, and harassment?

And finally, will disciplinary action be taken by the mayor or the NAHA board of directors? By HUD? Via legal action?

Or, yet again, it is to be swept beneath the increasingly bulging bunker throw rug? Gahan never has been in a hurry to animate his Human Rights Commission, the enabling ordinance of which was written by none other than Stan Robison, currently one of Duggins’ sworn enablers on the housing board.

Now we know why the HRC is up on blocks in the street department’s garage.

---

For today’s column, I’m soft-pedaling the polemics, although it should be said that in recent weeks, Duggins has comically rushed between Egg McMuffins at various area McDonald’s, pathetically spluttering about “fake” news and “false” rumors.

But rest assured there’s nothing fake or false about Duggins’ blatant unsuitability for his current position. Had Brown “joked” about shooting or tazing Duggins, would he have gotten away with it? Would he even have made it from the meeting room uninjured?

Only with power comes the “right” to say it was all a joke, and make no mistake: Duggins’ threats to Brown were all about power. So was Gahan's hostile takeover of public housing. People? They're just in the way.

Perhaps you remember the entertainer's explanation last fall of why he masturbated in front of women:

“When you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn't a question. It's a predicament for them."

If, like Brown, you find yourself wondering whether a highly paid public official with a policeman standing by his side is joking – that’s a bit of predicament, isn’t it?

Jeff Gahan owns this predicament. For too long, Duggins has been empowered, and we see clearly what this means to him. Duggins needs to go, and he needs to go immediately, before someone gets hurt.

We're looking at a dick, Jeffrey. How can Duggins ever be trusted after this?

---

Recent columns:

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

January 11: ON THE AVENUES: Return to sender; decency is such a lonely word ... the sounds of silence reign o'er me.

January 4: ON THE AVENUES: Opposition? It is defined as resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument, and in New Gahania, now's the time for it.

December 28: ON THE AVENUES: It's the beginning of the end of insipid Gahanism, so let's look back at the Top Ten columns of 2017.

David Duggins' TASER fetish: Hoosier Action has the lowdown, as Mayor Jeff Gahan remains hunkered in the down low bunker.

Hoosier Action has a way you can help, so give the NAHA a call and tell them what you think about TASER "jokes."

Don't forget that it isn't the rank and file at NAHA posing the problem. It's the imported colonial overlords.

While you're at it, here's another handy phone number: 812-948-5333, straight to City Hall -- because Mayor Jeff Gahan can't hide forever. Gahan owns the public housing debacle, and it's time he answered for it.

Tell NAHA Interim Director David Duggins: threats are no joke.

We Are New Albany Deputy Chairperson Brandon Brown has shown courageous leadership in defense of the public housing residents whose homes Duggins and Mayor Gahan are threatening with demolition. When Duggins "jokes" that Brandon should be tased, we see that for what it is: intimidation in retribution for Brandon's leadership.

If you want to let Duggins know you stand with Brandon and will not tolerate such threatening "jokes," the NAHA phone number is 812-948-2319. Tell us in the comments what you said, and how it was received.

Earlier: Team Gahan circles the wagons as David "Knucksie" Duggins' TASER fetish becomes the big story today at the News and Tribune.

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

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


A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I started a joke which started the whole world crying

But I didn't see that the joke was on me, oh no

-- Bee Gees

A sense of humor is a serious business; and it isn't funny, not having one.

-- Martin Amis

---

But seriously, do you want to know something really funny?

Thanks to the News & Tribune and the Associated Press, our humble anchor-laden city astride the mud flats by river’s edge – where unsold Bicentennial books double as paving stones and stray sheep are increasingly scared – has at long last achieved national renown.

In fact, David “Earthbound” Duggins has done the impossible, pushing celebrated basketball wunderkind Romeo Langford completely off the front page, in the process making New Albany into an overnight sensation, and the hottest go-to destination for every addled sociopath in America who gut-laughs and guffaws at the continued humiliation of our community’s most vulnerable populations.

That’s right, dear reader: We’ve been transformed into the place where you want to be, if being here means empowering an "interim" public housing director who remains utterly bereft of meaningful qualifications, one who blithely swaps administrative responsibilities for stand-up comedy, tells idiotic “jokes” about shooting, tasering and other acts of random violence, mumbles an insultingly insincere apology, and still keeps his job.

Evidently it's why the Associated Press is here: from sea to shining sea, up pops the same news story: Philly, Houston, LA, Seattle, Chicago and even US News and World Report, for Adam’s sake.

New Albany Housing Authority interim director David Duggins says he's "deeply sorry" for his comment after last Monday's housing authority board meeting.

The News and Tribune reports Duggins asked an officer to deploy a stun gun on Brandon Brown after Brown used a cellphone to record the meeting, where an activist spoke out against a plan to raze public housing units for a redevelopment project. Brown says the stun gun comment was frightening.

Faster than Duggins can deeply chug an ice-cold Bud Light Lime, something he actually is highly qualified to do, his cancerous ego and underdeveloped funny bone have combined to render our shakily recovering municipality into a laughingstock throughout the entire country.

Just as predictably, mired in his customary default condition of confusion, narcissism and cloistered stubbornness, Mayor Jeff M(ilhous) Gahan has said absolutely nothing to indicate he cares a single jot about this nasty situation, although it would surprise no one if he awarded Duggins yet another laudatory raise in pay.

How much money is enough for Team Gahan, anyway?

Seeing as Gahan’s sole purpose from the outset of his farcical public housing takeover has been to rid the city of what the mayor obviously regards as a parasitic class of unattractive poor people, why would he be bothered by TASERs, pistol-whippings or other acts of official intimidation if these are the tools deployed by his most trusted of monetizing adjutants to get ‘em the hell out?

---

NON-DREAM SEQUENCE

“Davey, you’re doing a heckuva job,” tittered Gahan as his armor-plated golf cart rolled noisily down Erni Avenue, the heart of vanquished, conquered Baghdad – or was it Lane Land?

The giggly mayor gaped at his ubiquitous colonial coordinator Irving Joshua, who was diligently rubber-stamping demolition orders.

“Hey Irving, now that we’ve toppled the impoverished once and for all, can we start building some big-time luxury here? Daddy needs some campaign finance.”

“I don’t know,” replied Joshua. “We may have maxed out all of our TIF-Plus cards until 2046 – wait, where’s Dugout? He was standing here just a second ago, and I warned him against speaking with other humans.”

“Aw, he’s fine. Knucksie’s over there sweet-talking one of them non-citizens. Let me give Coffey a call and get this party started!”

A bearded man in a pith helmet was observed posturing over by the bus stop.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” Duggins jauntily yelled at a cowering resident.

“Ready? Okay, so I walk up to you and say that if you don’t do exactly as I please, I’ll have you shot, TASERed, drawn, quartered, muzzled, kicked out, and if that doesn’t do it, then we’ll get really rough.”

There was a pause. Duggins appeared puzzled.

“Why aren’t you laughing? I mean, that’s some funny shit, right?

Silence.

“All right, how about this one. Do you know they’re paying me six figures to drive a bulldozer though your house?”

---

Here’s another knee-slapper.

As the days have passed since Duggins provided final, definitive and irrefutable evidence of Gahan’s morally bankrupt judgment, all sorts of nervous time-servers whose quivering beaks urgently rely on the mayor’s slop bucket for rivulets of sustenance have taken to earnestly advising Public Housing Resident Zero, offering him heartfelt counsel.

They’re all warning Brandon Brown to be super-duper careful about soulless agitators, conniving communists and malign influences hailing from outside the immediate vicinity of his square footage in Nawbany, accusing these troublemakers of having politics on their minds ... and maybe even reading books.

The horror!

As if the mayor hasn’t gotten out of bed a single time since 2003 without first pondering the political implications of getting dressed – and everyone knows you can’t stuff a fat bribe in a book; it causes an unsightly bulge where the ideas used to be.

The good news thus far is that Brown is coping quite capably, thank you. A few days after Duggins made his characteristically impeccable bid for immediate termination, the aforementioned Joshua, yet another gray-eminence Redevelopment toady brought to the NAHA to help man the wrecking balls, spent roughly ten minutes urging Brown to keep TASERgate safely in-house among “friends” – where it belongs, lest toxic vapors waft in the direction of Hauss Square.

Joshua fairly cooed: Son, just file a complaint with the NAHA board of bootlicking sycophants, where the paperwork will immediately come to none other than Joshua himself for lubed and expedited resolution.

Joshua continued: Better yet, newfound bosom buddy, why not come over to the conference room for a little down-home, closed-door chat with me – and Duggins, and a couple of police officers, and whomever else wants to get to the bottom of this misunderstanding as ol' pals and companions … and no one else knows yet, right?

At this juncture, finally able to wedge a word into the mellifluous spiel, Brown simply noted that he’d already complained to HUD in Indianapolis.

(This revelation produced a remarkable change in Joshua’s demeanor, but yet to be answered is why Joshua enjoys such an immense degree of unelected clout, which he has been wielding at Redevelopment since at least 2005, and surely before, as installed and maintained by successive Democratic mayoral regimes. Does this mean he has the incriminating photos under lock and key?)

Running the gamut from grubby to squalid and shamelessly shabby, Gahan’s operatives are covering every conceivable nuance, aren’t they?

---

In short, just about everyone with something to lose has rushed straight to Brown in an effort to keep him quiet in the wake of Duggins’ latest outbreak of inexcusable and inappropriate behavior involving the powerless – as opposed to respectable high-dollar developers and engorged oligarchs, because hell, you can always reason with the golf-course set over bets, booze, beefsteak and broads.

And by doing so, we also see that Gahan’s minions aren't bothered in the least by "jokes" about injuring townspeople, but rather are spooked by those damned intruders from somewhere else – like Hoosier Action from Bloomington, the News & Tribune from Jeffersonville and NA Confidential, the latter a mere two doors down from the home of 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps, who once campaigned on a platform of social justice, and now believes it can begin only where city limits end.

Then again, xenophobia is in fashion, so how dare these disruptive foreigners come to Giddy Giddy City to disrupt our own Peculiar Civic Institution of Patronizing and Patronage?

The consummate irony of this situation is perfectly obvious, because what most of these radical “outsiders” share is nothing more than a sincere desire to represent New Albany townspeople who are at risk, when the majority of the city’s elected representatives have fled the scene in abject panic.

It has been nauseating. With the notable exception of State Representative Ed Clere (at-large councilman Al Knable is at least being responsive), the default response of local elected officials to the accumulated unpleasantness of Gahan’s housing putsch, whether Democrat, Republican or “independent,” has been drone-like rote agreement or hurried, abject capitulation.

Most commonly: “It’s not my area,” or “it’s nothing to do with me,” and “what can I possibly do?”

Your job, perhaps?

So very sorry to inconvenience our ruling bloc of (mostly) 50-something white males, all of whom attended Bulldog High, but you see, gentlemen, this was bad enough even before Duggins’ latest act of compounded incomprehension, which has irrevocably embarrassed the city of New Albany before a national audience.

I’ve already received a call from an intrigued eastern seaboard writing acquaintance asking for background about the putsch, which I speedily and happily provided.

Verily, Gahanism is rotten to the core, and living, breathing people like those residing in public housing are suffering the brunt of Jeffrey’s hastening implosion.

He's governing for some, not all, and when Dear Leader’s self-aggrandizing sand castle washes away, lots of local Democratic pillars are going to find themselves stranded by the tide – and council Republicans needn't smile, either, seeing as they're not exactly draping themselves in glory.

My suggestion is for the cadres to begin a long overdue rethink about this Gahan-engineered debacle – for instance, ceasing to listen to the groundless New Albany public housing mythology playing in their heads, and starting (for once) to look at reality on the ground.

Isn’t the departure of Duggins a fine place to begin the necessary cleansing?

When will enough be enough, whether it's campaign finance, embedded anchors or threats against life and limb?

As the Associated Press providentially has helped us to see,  Duggins no longer is a liability to the city's deaf, dumb and blind ruling class alone. Now the contagion has spread, and we’re all being thoroughly slimed by his chortling, clueless and remarkably stupid idea of a joke.

The ball's in your court, mayor.

Can you at least make a gurgling sound to let us know if you're still breathing?

---

Recent columns:

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

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

January 11: ON THE AVENUES: Return to sender; decency is such a lonely word ... the sounds of silence reign o'er me.

January 4: ON THE AVENUES: Opposition? It is defined as resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument, and in New Gahania, now's the time for it.

Cowardly lyin': "No legal or policy violations found yet after NAHA Taser comment" -- just the standard default everyday Team Gahan ethical and moral jaundice.

"Tawdry means cheap, shoddy, or tasteless. It can be used to describe almost anything from clothes to people to events or affairs."

Back here in New Gahania, it's yet another Magical Mystery Detour.

No legal or policy violations found yet after NAHA Taser comment, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — One month after a New Albany Housing Authority resident said he felt threatened by a comment the interim director made about him that the director says was originally meant as a joke, little has been done on the part of the agencies the resident complained to, two of which say they found no legal or policy violation.

When it comes to ethics on Jeff Gahan's watch, the already subterranean bar already was submerged before the flood waters came, as Brandon Brown is learning.

Brandon Brown, a six-year resident of NAHA, filed actions with the New Albany Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, the Indiana State Police, the New Albany Police Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after NAHA Interim Director David Duggins instructed a New Albany police officer to shoot Brown with his stun gun on Jan. 22 after a NAHA board meeting that Brown taped with his cell phone.

As words go, "staged" and "stooge" are interchangeable as they pertain to potted apologies.

Duggins apologized to Brown for his comment later in an email, and told the News and Tribune that while it was insensitive, he meant no malice toward Brown.

A regular stand-up comic, that "interim" buldozer contractor of ours.

Duggins said he prefaced his comment by saying that next time when Brown filmed the meeting he should get his good side, and if he didn’t, the police officer should shoot Brown with his stun gun. Brown’s account differs. He says that Duggins asked him if Brown was on his side, and then said something that sounded like “since you like videotaping,” before he told the officer to shoot Brown with his stun gun.

I deeply appreciate the follow-up on the part of the News and Tribune, but once again, it must be asked whether anyone has asked for Gahan's viewpoint, even once. My guess: he'd hurriedly shunt the question to Irving Joshua.

Joshua said that personal problems have prevented him from scheduling a private, executive session among board members regarding the complaint, but that he plans to in the future.

First, he has to ask Duggins to provide him with a written summary of what happened, as well as one from Schneider.

Joshua said that he believes the board will have to do something about what Duggins said, although Joshua did not elaborate on what that could be.

Gahan probably would have us believe it's all about Joshua, who Gahan himself placed in the current position, meaning that the buck stops with Gahan and everyone knows it apart from Team Gahan itself, although it's been instructive to watch as the shadowy cronyist operator Joshua on loan to NAHA from redevelopment consistently flees the spotlight.

Then there's the police department.

The New Albany Police Department also has completed its review of the stun gun comment and its aftermath, prompted by the formal complaint made against its police officer, and has determined that no policy violations occurred, said New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey in an email. No punitive actions were taken against Schneider either.

“I will say however it was a good training opportunity for officer Schneider as well as the rest of the department,” said Bailey.

See, Brandon? Your distress can be blithely explained away as a mere training exercise.

Of course, since Team Gahan first charted a course for constant evasion in this case, the news cycle has provided an augmented perspective. Jeff Gillenwater threads the needle with devastating precision.

When a public official and fellow Gahan crony issues a threat, police chief Todd Bailey accepts “it was just a joke” at face value and calls it a training opportunity for the officer who witnessed it. Likewise, the county prosecutor does nothing. When a teenager issues a threat online and Bailey and others agree it was a joke and no real harm was intended, they immediately arrest the teenager, charge him with a felony, and go on TV to proudly announce there will be no tolerance of threatening language, that anyone who engages in threats will be arrested and prosecuted. Their political posturing and hypocrisy leaves one young man intimidated and at risk of more with no recourse and another in jail and facing a lifetime stigma for behaving like a public official. New Albany justice, much more a matter of political connections than actual behavior.

The number of functionaries who have, in words or effect, gone on record as finding zero issues with Duggins' characteristically intemperate taser threat now includes Gahan, Joshua, Bailey, Dickey and prosecutor Keith Henderson ... and NAHA board members like Robison, Ginkins and Norwood ... and councilmen Coffey and McLaughlin, with Barksdale and Phipps both straining to look the other way.

With one exception, they're white males; most are proud members of the Floyd County Democratic Party. In short, they're supposedly  our best and brightest, although none care to fathom the sheer moral and ethical rottenness of Duggins in charge of feeding your pet hamster, much less the future of actual human beings fearing for their future.

It's political business as usual, and it's power-trip bullshit.

If you agree with me, don't forget to vote against each and every one of them when next you have the chance.

#FireGahan2019

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Are city officials really talking about selling Riverview Tower for luxury redevelopment? Trump might want a piece of THIS action.

In Nawbany, the satire writes itself, as with this startling revelation from 2017.

Interim executive housing director Duggins eagerly welcomes student nurses to Riverview Tower.

After all, most everything of what little Duggins knows about anything he learned from Bill Clinton -- probably at Keeneland.

ON THE AVENUES: Could that be David Duggins paddling across Jeff Gahan's putrid cesspool? On second thought, I'll take the blindfold.

Let's review: In 2017 Jeff Gahan staged a hostile takeover of the New Albany Housing Authority, thus escalating the heart rate of every old white guy in town of Gahan's own vintage who'd spent the past 50 years insisting that if we could just remove the poor (read: mostly black) people, this town finally could be something. 

Seeing as Duggins already had assembled all the fixes our creaking TIF areas could allow while merrily monetizing at redevelopment, Gahan transferred our favorite Clark County transplant to NAHA, where he could abuse real human beings rather than funding and branding mechanisms.

File under "TASER Humor from Overpaid Functionaries."

Week in review: Jeff Gahan created the Duggins debacle at NAHA, so stop normalizing his efforts to remain aloof.

In 2018, things got really interesting.

Duggins spreads blame, manure as the air conditioning at Riverview Towers fails on HIS watch.

"I'm electric," says a kite-bearing Duggins to Riverview residents as Gahan disappears into yonder bunker.

Duggins, Gahan log into Priceline Dot Com as Riverview Towers residents are evacuated.

This brings us to the present day.

Queue the cattle cars, because Riverview Tower will be the next pawn in City Hall's luxury enhancement crusade.

From the moment we heard about the public housing putsch two years ago, Gahan's uncharacteristically transparent rationale was obvious.

1. Ship out the unsightly poor people living there -- and who cares where they go?

2. Use that land for luxury "redevelopment" in the vital cause of pay-to-play campaign finance enhancement.

For the cynics, stalker, trolls and creeps (gypsies, tramps and thieves?) populating the fevered corridors of NA Confidential, this meant one prime goal above all others.

The nevermindset of selected bloviators like Gahan and Duggins -- not to mention their hordes of slobbering sycophants and eager campaign donors -- might be encapsulated as "poor people simply don't deserve such a nice view, and we might far better deploy prime real estate for the elites." In short, Riverview Tower always was going to be the centerpiece of the NAHA takeover.

The NAHA putsch was many things, among them sheer expedience. Donald Trump had been elected, and he'd presumably appoint wastrels of his own to look the other way as HUD was summarily pillaged. Who better than Trump to empathize with Gahan's lamentation about the uselessness of a nice view if only wretched poor people have it?

What's more, if Gahan didn't act quickly in early 2017, Bob Lane might have been on the verge of succeeding in his long-sought goal of rejuvenating public/affordable local housing on a 1:1 basis, this being anathema to ranking local Democrats who've never been democratic at all when it comes to the challenges facing plain folks -- and especially for Gahan, who would not receive proper ego-brushing for Lane's hard work.

That's because Adamization means gentrification, and Gahanism embraces loads of cash far beyond the disposable income of minimum wage employees, hence our prediction about the probable outcome of Riverview Towers, which we made from the very start of the putsch.

Under normal circumstances, there'd be no way to co-opt Riverview Tower, but by seizing NAHA in Our Time of Trump, banishing Lane and packing the governing mechanism with gutless lickspittles, Gahan engineered the possibility with extreme opportunism.

• emphasize Riverview Tower's irreparable physical problems, blaming them on predecessors while ignoring more recent screw-ups committed by his own handpicked regime
• scatter the Tower's residents for their own good (as Gauleiter Duggins openly signaled to the forever inattentive Chris Morris of the local chain newspaper)
• sell off the property for for the sort of "luxury" high-rise development that's eternally more conducive to the engorged mayoral sense of self-importance than any conceivable dose of Viagra

All this has been written previously, and the Green Mouse is the first to admit that when we first began discussing the mayor's Riverview Tower adaptive luxury reuse plan, it was intended to be tongue-in-cheek. However, as the months passed, Luxury Riverview became ever more plausible.

Now an insider has informed the Mouse that far from being imaginary, these musings are real, and ranking NAHA officials recently have been overheard discussing precisely just such an outcome for the building.  

After all, the mayor has promised a slew of exciting new revelations during this, his majesty's electoral re-enthronement drive of 2019.

To be clear, currently this is classified as RUMOR. We've no proof, at least yet. But it's clearly something that could be done, and fits the DemoDisneyDixiecrat mantra.

In Nawbany, the satire writes itself -- but does life imitate satire?

#FireGahan2019

Team Gahan circles the wagons as David "Knucksie" Duggins' TASER fetish becomes the big story today at the News and Tribune.

Thanks to the newspaper for picking up this story from NAC. Our arms were getting tired.

The reporter Grady does a very good job here.

Threat or joke? NAHA official's Taser comment questioned, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — One side is calling it a threat, the other, an inappropriate statement with no malice behind it: At a meeting last Monday, the interim director of the New Albany Housing Authority told a police officer to deploy a stun gun at a resident after the resident recorded a video of the gathering.

Even the newspaper itself understands that certain of its older, male, New Albany-based reporters wouldn't pursue the story with this degree of thoroughness. Now it's up to the somnolent and detached editorial board to begin grasping the depths of depravity on the ground amid Jeff Gahan's public housing putsch. Note also that this photo by Josh Hicks ...

... previously enraged Duggins so much that he threw a tantrum behind closed doors, which I believe his adjutant Tony Toran would be able to corroborate, if he cares to do so. Kudos to the newspaper for using it today.

It isn't so much that Duggins' apology is entirely insincere, although he'll be dismissing it, giggling and rolling his eyes the next time his posse convenes over Bud Light Limes and Fireball shots.

Rather, it's that Gahan's placement of Duggins at NAHA is a preposterous and cynical absurdity. Gahan owns this catastrophe, and the rehearsed backslapping of sycophants like Irving Joshua merely make the land-grab scenario more damning.

Staged apologies obviously aren't enough. It would be an act of mercy for Gahan to relieve Duggins of responsibilities which he is professionally and temperamentally unsuited to perform. Duggins always has insisted he could make far more money in the private sector.

It's time to let him monetize elsewhere, isn't it?

Click here for previous NAC coverage of Duggins' NAHA bullying.

In which Deaf Gahan asks: “Okay, what’s the ISSUE with Riverview? Do you KNOW people who live over there? I mean, WHY are we talking about Riverview?”

On April 2 a "handful" of Mark Elrod Tower residents (the mayor's words, not ours) witnessed a full-throttle City Hall team in glorious campaign mode. Mayor Gahan, Gauleiter Duggins and BOWhisperer Nash each spoke.

For this final excerpt, comprising roughly the first ten minutes of the "presentation," it's a shame the audio isn't available. I've taken the liberty of underlining those passages in which Gahan's and Duggins' tone of voice changes markedly, from talking to (not "with") an audience of seniors as though they were schoolchildren, to brief snippets of a defensive, almost menacing edge. 

Here is the extended excerpt. I went over it a second time for accuracy and made a few light edits to the passage previously published here. Thanks to the Green Mouse for uncovering this gem.

---

(David Duggins is speaking as the recording begins)

Duggins: “I just learned we’ve got maybe a squirrel issue, which we’ll be working on some squirrel issues here. We’ll get that taken care of, too.”

(nervous laughter)

Duggins: “If there’s anything you need always get with Steve or Sue, and I’m happy to help anytime I can. I’d like introduce my good friend, Mayor Jeff Gahan. Thank you.”

Gahan: (giggling) “That’s a good sign, right? Hey, listen, uh, thanks for taking time out, and thanks, uh, for giving me a minute tonight. I certainly appreciate it, uh, I do want to acknowledge the work that everybody does here at New Albany Housing Authority because it’s really a serious group of people. I know you see Dave, you see some of these folks, they got a smile on their face, and they’re kinda cutting up some times, right? But, but you know, they’re real serious about their job, they’re real serious about making all the properties in the New Albany Housing Authority, you know, top flight. And, uh, top, they want to make sure they’re all well maintained, and, uh, the accommodations are the best that we can offer. And it’s really a challenge nowadays, uh, and I’ll tell you why, because okay in the city of New Albany we have 1,187 units, and for many years you had to go through this period where at the federal government they were kind of turning the screws and they weren’t putting the maintenance money that they needed to maintain the properties down here, so, we knew we needed some maintenance done but it didn’t really get down here like we wanted it to, and that trend is continuing, uh, the latest budget they’re pushing for has a 16% reduction in funds for housing and urban development. So we’re still committed to making this, everything, every unit, the top flight, and we’re going to continue to do that, and I can tell you that’s going to happen, uh, we’re taking every step that we can possibly make to make sure that every unit is as good as it can possibly be. And uh you’ve seen a little bit of changes around here, Dave’s done a great job, and changed some things, but soon you’ll see even more, you’ll see additional, we’re taking steps right now to acquire additional properties throughout the city, to build new ones, we’re taking steps right now to make sure that, uh, each one of the units have been inspected, you’ve probably seen people coming and going, making sure that we have a good idea of what the condition of every one of the properties is. And we’re going to take steps to improve them. David Duggins, again, he worked for the city in re-, in economic redevelopment before he came here, so he knows what it takes to take dollars and put them into service, take dollars and turn them into improvements for everybody. And that’s what we’re going to do, that’s the course we’re on for the next five or six years, you’ll see really, really cool improvements in the housing in New Albany and Jeff. You have a really great place, this happens to be the best facility we have, uh, we have some of them that are in terrible condition, they’re terrible, and, uh, but we’re taking steps and making plans to improve those as well. So I’m excited about it, it’s a really great opportunity for us to show how we can make something that’s very much needed, housing is very, very needed, uh, across the board where, uh, there’s a shortage of housing at all levels, uh, at all income levels we’re short houses, we’re short housing, and, uh, we’re committed to improve the housing stock all over the city and make better opportunities for people to live here, and afford to live here, so, uh, in addition to that you’ll see the mission of the housing authority is expanding, which I think is really cool. Uh, we’ve, we’ve taken steps to improve the health, and we’ll be announcing some facilities that will improve, have opportunities for you folks to go to, to have check-ups and their, your teeth looked at, uh, which I think is very exciting – we haven’t had that, but you’ll see that soon. You’ll also see, if you haven’t already seen, additional police presence on campus, more police, more security, more cameras, all right, so a whole lot of really cool things are going on, and uh, again – again we’ll just be expanding services in general, so I’m excited about it, and uh, I wanted to come in and say hi, so if you’ve got any questions, I’m sure you have questions and I’d like to answer them.”

Resident: “I want to know why you’re buying more property for parking when you’re going to tear down Riverview. The newspaper states that you’re putting in more parking for Riverview residents, but yet you’re moving Riverview residents out and you’re going to tear down the building.”

(Duggins quickly intervenes in a question intended for Gahan)

Duggins: “Well, none of that’s been released, it said in the paper we had the opportunity to buy an eyesore, and one of the proper uses for that is parking for that area. We do have a parking issue in that entire area, when we have anything that goes on at Riverview Tower we have to move folks out, we have to close those two spots out front, so any work, when we have electricians and all that, and when that eyesore became available to be purchased, which the city had targeted that for a long time, we purchased it, and that is why we’re doing it. We have not made formal – we have just finished with the negotiations for the insurance on Riverview Tower and this is Mark Elrod Tower, there’s a difference in the type of age of people that live on this side and the quality of the units of this apartment complex compared to Riverview Tower, so when we purchased that, that is available, be available, there are environmental issues and a big creek that runs through there, we’ll be tearing the building down there and looking for that, but yes, property, property purchased for the expansion of parking.”

Resident: "Okay, but you are going to tear down Riverview?"

(Both Gahan and Duggins can be heard murmuring amid the muddle; Duggins can be heard condescendingly saying “not tearing down buildings.” The questioner, perhaps fearing a Taser "joke," says “Okay, alright, I just want to get clear in my mind.”)

Gahan: “Okay, what’s the issue with Riverview? Do you know people who live over there? I mean, why are we talking about Riverview?”

Resident: "Because they’re all moving into here – no, it’s not I’m concerned that they’re moving in here, but you’re moving those people … the people from Riverview are being moved out."

Duggins: “No, that’s not true. We haven’t moved anyone out. There are eleven, eleven vacancies here now, and the people at Riverview have first opportunity to come here because we are holding vacancies there because we have an electrical issue, so when we have vacancies here and if they qualify by their age, uh, which there is a different age requirement for living here, then they are welcome to move here just like you were welcome to move here, and that’s what we’re doing – there are 11 vacancies as of last – I looked it up – last Wednesday and we’re trying to fill them, and the folks at Riverview have the opportunity to move over here, and they’ll continue to have the opportunity.”

Resident: "Before other residents within in the city?"

Duggins: “Yes because they’re in public housing, public housing.”

Gahan: “Yeah, I don’t think, I don’t think you have to be worried about anything, uh, that’s going to crowd you, if that’s what your concern is, I mean I don’t think you have to worry about that. We have 1,187 units, which is more than anyone in Clark County, any five counties combined, we have more than anyone, and we’re going to keep – that’s the way it’s going to stay, with more opportunities to live here in New Albany than any other place, but what we won’t put up with is sub-standard housing. It’s not, we’re going to make it better, make improvements, and you know I, I feel great about it, and you all should be too – I think you all should be really thrilled about it, because yeah, at the end of the day, you know, with folks out in Seattle, that, there, they can make you know 150,000 dollars a year, 200,000 dollars and they don’t have a place to live, because houses have gotten too expensive for people to live in! And that’s the way it is. And that’s what we’re going to do …

(Resident interjects, "That’s Seattle, that’s not New Albany.")

… here, we’re going to do everything, everything to make this a better place, but you have to be right now, you’re feeling super, because this is the best that the city has right here."

(garbled question: will you build another high rise?)

Gahan: “I don’t know if it’s going to be a high rise, I mean that’s something for the New Albany Housing director, the board to discuss, but I don’t know if it would be a high rise, because it’s kind of difficult, for, you know, seniors to get up and down a tower – but additional housing, additional housing, additional, uh, housing, absolutely, it may not be a tower, but you know, it’s – you know, right, don’t need to tell you, it’s hard to get up and down.

(Resident whispers, "I know")

Gahan: “So anyway, so I know those things, uh, you know we’ve made some changes and when you make changes you make people a little nervous, and I don’t blame ya! I’m the same way, uh, I can just tell you we have some really solid plans that we’re working on now to improve the residents, the residence halls for everyone, and uh, these things don’t happen overnight, everything we do has to be approved at the state level and at the federal level, it’s not like I can just come in here and Dave come in here or the board come in here and make all these changes, these wholesale changes, it doesn’t work that way. It has to be approved all the way up the line and then back, and it includes lots of layers of bureaucracy that we have to deal with, so you know there’ll be no changes overnight, but I have people say, when’s it going to happen? Well, each box has to be checked. But first thing we had to do when Dave came over here was to make sure he understood the condition of each unit. Hell, it’d been years since people had even walked in and knew exactly what was going on in those units. First thing he did was inspect them all. Every one. Every single one. Dave did that. So now we have an idea of what the condition of each unit is, that’s the starting point, and I have to tell ya, it wasn’t really great news. Some were in pretty rough shape – these aren’t, these are super …

(resident heard scoffing)

… but if you ever had the chance to go see some of the others … right? So I want you to feel good about it, I feel good about it, I feel really great about the future of the New Albany Housing Authority, it has some great leadership there, got a great board, got a great leader in Dave, got committed staff, committed maintenance, and it’s a big part of New Albany, and it’s going to stay that way. Okay? So what other questions do you have, what do you have, what else?"

BREAKING: Keith Henderson will not file criminal charges against David Duggins for threatening a resident of public housing.

NA Confidential has learned that the Floyd County Prosecutor's office has chosen not to file criminal charges against David Duggins, as related to Brandon Brown by an Indiana State Police investigator.

Duggins, the "interim" director of the New Albany Housing Authority, had threatened Brown with TASERing following a recent NAHA board meeting. Duggins later issued an indirect apology, and to date, no disciplinary actions have been taken.

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

Brown also has filed a complaint with the New Albany Police Department, HUD in Indianapolis, and (perhaps) the NAHA. The status of these complaints is not known at this time.

In other news pertaining to the takeover and occupation of the housing authority by Mayor Jeff Gahan, a question has arisen.

If Duggins still is designated as being in an "interim" position, how many interviews has the NAHA board held with applicants for the permanent NAHA Director job?

---

As an addendum, NA Confidential has been unable to confirm whether New Albany Mayor Jeff M. Gahan or anyone working in the city's administration is under federal investigation or indictment for corruption, bribery or racketeering. It is standard policy of the U.S. Justice Department to refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations. A similar policy exists at the F.B.I.

"No demolition without a plan to replace" ... We Are New Albany meeting tonight at 6 at Destinations.

Previously:

Last night at city council, the News and Tribune looked the other way as McLaughlin condoned Duggins' TASER hilarity.

Week in review: Jeff Gahan created the Duggins debacle at NAHA, so stop normalizing his efforts to remain aloof.

The next meeting of We Are New Albany is on Wednesday, February 7 from 6 - 8 p.m. at Destinations Booksellers, 604 E. Spring Street.

In Spring 2017, New Albany, Indiana Mayor Jeff Gahan announced his intention to demolish more than half of the town's public housing stock. Apart from vague promises of housing vouchers, residents have been told almost nothing about the plan or what will become of them. Sign the petition: No demolition without a plan to replace!

It's hard to believe that Gahan's hostile takeover was launched a year ago.

ON THE AVENUES: A luxury-obsessed Jeff Gahan has packed a board and now seeks to break the New Albany Housing Authority. Can we impeach him yet?

But marvel at the pomposity of the raw cheek: Gahan writes his own Comprehensive Plan, and before it is so much as finalized, he’s already referring to it as though the document were Biblical, bearing force of law. Evidently this is a side effect of personality cults.

I’ll return to this Comprehensive Disneyfication Plan, and explain how the rush to approve it pertains to an accompanying push to eradicate the city’s affordable housing safety net. Since it’s hard to find a good starting point, let’s just dive into it.

Major thanks to so many readers for writing your council representatives to protest the "interim" NAHA director David Duggins' recent TASER verbal misbehavior, and for your continued support of this grassroots effort to restore sanity to public (and affordable) housing in New Albany.

Duggins releases new New Albany Housing Authority logo, picks up a sixer of Bud Light Lime, heads out to the TASER range to shoot a few ... rounds.

The week began with David Duggins "joking" about bodily harm to public housing residents, then shifted into an all-points denial on the part of Team Gahan.

Duggins is Jeff Gahan's own personal Frankenstein. Gahan owns this debacle. When's he going to answer for it?

Here's a recap. If you're a Democrat, it's time for a mirror gaze. Is this really the sort of embarrassment you wish to continue sanctioning?

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

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: "Individual bullying is usually characterized by a person behaving in a certain way to gain power over another person."

NAHA vs Pleasant Ridge: Deaf Gahan is appalled that he didn't think of mass taserings first.

We don't need a TASER Tsar at public housing.

Sycophants on parade: The Gahan-enabled NAHA board of lickspittle stooges meets today.

According to We Are New Albany, there'll be a New Albany Housing Authority board of commissioners meeting today at 4:00 p.m. in the conference room (300 Erni Avenue).

You'll recall the January meeting as the occasion for "interim" director David Duggins to abdicate moral authority for just about any job beyond "do you want fries with that?" by issuing violent TASER-laden threats against an NAHA resident.

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

Duggins remains ensconced owing to Jeff "Dear Leader" Gahan's own glaringly deficient people skills, as gleaned from a lifetime of veneer sales. Into the hands of these two, augmented by a board of groveling yes-lackeys handpicked by the mayor from his list of top campaign finance donors, the housing future of very many living, breathing human beings has been entrusted.

And remember, to a man, these pillars of balsa are Democrats who've gulped down the mythological Kool-Aid, and the cream of Unctuous Adam's snarling crop.

Feeling good about yourselves, guys and gals?

If by chance you're able to attend today's meeting, my suggestion is to enable the video in your mobile device and train it on Duggins throughout. There can be little doubt that sooner rather than later, the devil inside will come leaping out again.

When it does, let's make this one final, shall we?

NAHA vs Pleasant Ridge: Deaf Gahan is appalled that he didn't think of mass taserings first.

We're still trying to understand why a public official clocking in at $120K per annum thinks it's hilarious to threaten a resident of public housing with shooting/tasering, merely because the resident exercised his rights to free speech and assembly.

Maybe it's because in David Duggins' bloodshot eyes, they're not really people: We don't need a TASER Tsar at public housing.

Jeff Gahan placed Duggins in this position of alleged stewardship trust at NAHA, and the ethically challenged Taser Tsar has run through his first allotment of Dear Leader's trust. The tank's empty.

It's theoretically possible that Team Gahan might publicly explain and take responsibility for this latest fiasco before Thursday afternoon, when ON THE AVENUES will break it down -- and while we're busy handicapping, perhaps anyone walking on the northern Spring Street sidewalk today should use caution lest a stray piano drop from the third floor of Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

Meanwhile over in Charlestown, where the mayor doesn't even try to pretend he's a Democrat, there is more ugliness over a very NAHA-like situation, with the primary difference between the Pleasant Ridge and NAHA land grabs being that public housing residents in New Albany have even less clout than targeted "non-citizens" in Charlestown.

According to our 9th district Democratic congressional candidates, Pleasant Ridge is a very bad deal, indeed, and deserving of denunciation.

My advice to them: Take a good, hard look at the interim director of NAHA. People there need you now, not after the primary. Isn't a terroristic threat just the same irrespective of who utters it -- and shouldn't there be a higher bar for a public official like Duggins?

You can only hold your noses for so long, right?

Or, does shit stink only when it cascades to the ground from the posterior of a Republican?

Lawsuit accuses Charlestown officials, developer of extortion scheme to buy land for a song, by Justin Sayers (Louisville Courier Journal)

Some property owners accuse Charlestown, Indiana city officials and others of an extortion scheme that used fines to pressure them to sell their properties well under market value.

The federal lawsuit filed Friday claims that nine property management companies and landlords were persuaded to sell more than 100 Pleasant Ridge rental properties, most of them for only $10,000 each, to Pleasant Ridge Redevelopment LLC, the company hired by the city to redevelop the low-income neighborhood.

Prior to the sale, the city of Charlestown levied code-enforcement fines on the homes, some of which amounted to thousands of dollars a day for the owners. Once the properties were sold, the fines were waived, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court in New Albany.

The plaintiffs claim their constitutional rights were violated under the equal rights protection act. They also argue that coercing owners to sell to a private entity violates federal anti-corruption laws.

Named as defendants were Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall, members of the city council and public works board, the Charlestown Redevelopment Commission and the development team, including the chairman of Pleasant Ridge Development LLC, John Neace ...

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Money is the ultimate bully (2015).

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Money is the ultimate bully (2015). 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm on vacation, so this is a rerun from August 7, 2015, when I was waging an ultimately unsuccessful bid for mayor of New Albany as an independent candidate.  Two and a half years later, I'm finding that much of my material has worn quite well, hence the encores. 

Don't forget: #FireGahan2019

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New Albany is a city of 37,000 residents. Not even 1% of them bicycle to work. The poverty rate is 23%, and incumbent mayor Jeff Gahan came into the year 2015 with almost $100,000 in his re-election fund.

He’d have spent some of it during the primary season, and surely raised more since then.

That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?

Do you ever wonder where it all comes from?

For $100,000 to have come entirely from New Albany, every voter opting for Gahan in 2011 already would have donated at least $22 to his 2015 campaign. One needn’t be a card-carrying cynic (like me) to know this has not been the case, and I’d wager that less than 20% of the mayor’s total take has come from “just plain folks” locally.

Speaking in broader terms, we needn’t bother examining Gahan’s financial filings with a magnifying glass in order to make educated guesses about the sources of the lucre.

$50,000 or more probably has come from elsewhere, whether Indianapolis, the Magic Kingdom or the Canary Islands, by way of various PACs and Democratic Party funding sources. In addition, there are certain to be significant chunks from those engineering, contracting and construction firms commissioned to erect Gahan’s many gleaming palaces by means of taxpayer money.

Did I say gleaming palaces?

I meant TIF-bonded, plaque-ready building projects. They’re pictured on the flash cards Gahan holds aloft at every opportunity, although where I grew up, things can’t be classified as “gifts” when the giver used your credit card to pay for them.

Since 2012, the good times have rolled and many beaks have gotten nice and wet. Randomly adding together Bicentennial Park, the farmers market buildout, Main Street beautification, parks and aquatic center bonds, Coyle site sewer fee waivers and the accompanying corporate TIF welfare handouts, special event equipment rentals, overtime and an expense account luncheon here and there, Gahan has spent well north of $30 million since January 1, 2012, on wants, as opposed to needs.

It’s probably closer to $40 million … and I forgot the drive-to-only dog park.

$40-odd million.

That’s a lot of money, isn’t it, and it helps to explain the familiar cycle of campaign funding, doesn’t it, and as a longtime blogger, independent mayoral candidate and fairly well-read fellow who also enjoys sitting at the bar and nursing a beer, is it somehow my fault that I possess the ability to bring all this to your attention in an educational and entertaining way?

Am I forcibly seizing the bully pulpit? Using the tools at my disposal? Deploying guerrilla tactics against a well-heeled, unscrupulous opponent?

Of course, all the while hoping there still exists a modicum of free speech, allowing any of us to mount that soap box and let it rip – and to toss a hat onto the ring, file petitions, do paperwork, amass a scant pittance of campaign contributions, mount an insurgency against a man who has held elective office for twelve years, who has $100,000 burning a hole in his pocket, and what’s more, possesses a slick publicly-financed social media stream disseminating shameless re-election materials daily under the shabby guise of civic news -- and lest we forget, flaunts a local Democratic machine faithfully at his side, one ready to transition the incumbent as an Indiana Senate hopeful at the drop of a few hundred thousand bucks.

Let's try to be adults. Even this heretic knows that Goliath was the big bad bully, and not the dude with the spot-on slingshot, and accordingly, I’ll continue to speak and write openly about the way things are in New Albany, because when it comes to underdogs, sleepers, dark horses and the man in Tiananmen Square blocking a column of tanks with his briefcase, you won’t find any of them in the $100,000 mayoral suite overlooking one-way Spring Street.

And that’s exactly the way I like it.

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars comprising New Albany’s debt, but what the hey -- it’s the way American politics work, all disgusting and horrible when Republicans do it, which is why Democrats do it, too. Meanwhile, 44% of African-Americans in New Albany live below the poverty line … and 100% of Gahan’s out-of-town sugar daddies remain unaware of this fact.

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Four years ago, Jeff Gahan and I got together. He held a grudge over my participation in an abortive lawsuit intended to compel unwilling city council members to redistrict fairly, a reform Gahan helped shoot down, but heeding advice to be a good soldier and work within the Democratic Party system, I parleyed.

Over coffee, we spoke about what we viewed as important for the city’s future. On my list were topics familiar to anyone who’s been reading this blog since 2004, including two-way streets, rental property registration, slumlord abatement, ordinance enforcement, economic localism and historic preservation. He seemed to be in agreement, and I supported his candidacy as a result.

Obviously, Jeff Gahan won the election.

Obviously, Gahan hasn’t followed through on his promises to my satisfaction – and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Obviously, I believe he has turned out to be an absolutely lousy mayor. If I believed otherwise, would I be running against him as an independent?

Hence, my point: When I say Jeff Gahan is a lousy mayor, either aloud or in written form, and at times with pictures, some of them artistically altered so as to be funny, it’s hardly character assassination. Rather, it is an ongoing dialogue, and an argument constructed with concepts, ideas and evidence in addition to the wit and snark. In 2015, it’s also a political campaign, and as such, it is a milieu that each candidate has accepted as part of the game.

Of course, several of us have gone to great lengths, fairly often and for a very long time, to explain in excruciating detail why Gahan’s decision-making process is faulty, how we’d have done it differently, and what we might yet do to reverse the mistakes and make things better.

Here is one recent example.

Gahan’s corporate welfare bursar is David Duggins, although his official title is the increasingly improbable “economic development director.”

Duggins is fond of using words like “ripple effect” to describe Reaganite-style “trickle down” Hail Mary plays in cases like the Coyle site upscale luxury apartment development, in which the city of New Albany will pay one-third the price of a private company’s $15 million investment, devoting taxpayer dollars to mitigating the private company’s risks, these being magnanimous guarantees unavailable to dozens of homegrown entrepreneurs and investors.

One “ripple effect” of the Coyle site deal, which Duggins himself has referred to as mere “boilerplate,” is that it neatly closes the circle of campaign finance (see above).

But to me, these unfortunate “ripple effect” references better describe the many negative ramifications of Gahan’s bad Coyle site decision, above and beyond “just” losing the $5 million in corporate welfare handouts being thrown at Flaherty Collins.

For one, it sends a dreadful message to stakeholders in perennially neglected neighborhoods a mere stone’s throw away, which can be read in the smirk on Duggins’s face:

“Relax, folks. Trendy bocce ball access is on the veranda, with Mojitos and the best internet service in town, and these amenities matter far more than taking the time to curb the slumlord or revert the one-way street, actions that would increase your property values, reduce crime and enhance your quality of your life. Just be patient and wait for the ripple effect, because we’re sure the high rollers won’t forget the gratuity when you’re finished picking up after them. After all, they’re the right kind of people.”

The underemployed single mother in a shotgun house?

She must have forgotten to make a campaign donation.

Furthermore, the Coyle site subsidy represents five of 40-odd million questionable decisions, each one representing opportunity costs, lost chances and squandered potential. The money might have been spent on projects and programs designed to address genuine fundamentals of the sort calculated to spread the risks, spread the rewards, nurture the grassroots, and help lift the many rather than stroke the few.

However, far too often Gahan’s “investments” have not been directed toward these goals, and this isn’t my idea of what quality municipal government does. Perhaps it is yours, in which case I’d recommend voting for the mayor’s re-election, because in the end, that’s how elections are supposed to work.

They’re not enthronements. Ideally, they represent choices, and that's precisely what I aim to provide in 2015. If Jeff Gahan cannot keep up, it isn't my problem.

So, let’s be crystal clear: We rage against the current mayoral machine because the machine is the bully in this equation. To think otherwise is to practice the sort of enduring self-deception and intellectual debasement that have characterized Democratic machine politics in New Albany for so very long, and which prevent this city from reaching its potential.

I believe there are alternatives to the same tired civic rituals, practiced by the usual underachieving political suspects, and which come down to these three priorities:

Infrastructure
Empowerment
Transparency

Broken down a bit further, I’ll close the column today with these ten bullet point Baylor for Mayor platform planks.

Infrastructure upgrades and management
Quality of life by two-way design and ordinance enforcement
A sane and sustainable budget
Historic preservation and greening
New Albany’s economy comes first
Equal governance and level playing fields
A deep personnel cleaning of City Hall
Internet connectivity as infrastructure
Transparency and governmental communication
Human rights as non-negotiable mandate

Next week, I’ll elaborate on these points.

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Recent columns:

February 15: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: No more fear, Jeff (2015).

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

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

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