Blogger NA Girl points the way to a "Council With a Vision."

Earlier today, I referred an inquiring reader to articles previously published by NA Girl in New Albany Renewal.

She’s back tonight with a fresh posting, provocatively titled A Council With a Vision – which Charlottesville, Virginia proudly boasts.

“Mindful of our responsibility to future generations, Charlottesville will build a distinctive, world class, small city … ”

Stunning, as is the remainder of the document.

Meanwhile, CM Dan Coffey’s barbecued bologna and fellow Siamese CM Steve Price’s whining nickel-and-dime defeatism continue to embarrass New Albany regionally.

Visit New Albany Renewal, and follow the links. Then begin to contemplate alternatives to our own self-defeating electoral “dross to bear.”

NAC mail bag: "Benefits of local ownership" & "The Hometown Advantage."

An NA Confidential reader writes:

We enjoyed your take on the arrival of Applebee's, and seem to recall that some months ago, you ran a series of articles on issues relating to chains and local economies. I can't find them by searching.

There's been much written here on the topic, but what I believe you're remembering are a couple of entries in NA Girl's New Albany Renewal, both written in February.

She hasn't had time to update her blog lately, so I hope she won't mind my reprinting these two excellent articles here, with links back to the source.

---

Benefits of Local Ownership, from New Albany Renewal.

Independent businesses not only compete with large chains but with prevailing attitudes that favor the large chains. Consider some of the benefits of local ownership:

The profits from local businesses circulate within the community. Independent businesses patronize smaller regional wholesalers and distributors. They rely on other local businesses for services such as banking, accounting, and printing.

Local merchants have a vested in interest in the community. Their property taxes support the services that they use. Small business owners support community organizations, volunteer, and donate more financial support locally than large corporations.

A homegrown economy composed of a diverse and numerous independent businesses provides a healthy, competitive marketplace.
Check out these links for more information about supporting independent businesses and a healthy local economy:

http://www.newrules.org/
http://www.amiba.net/
http://www.boulder-iba.org/
www.livingeconomies.org

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The Hometown Advantage, from New Albany Renewal.
Stacy Mitchell is a researcher for the Institute for Local Self Reliance and the author of "The Hometown Advantage." In her book she explores the trend toward a chain store economy and why that might not be the best thing for communities.

There is a perception that giant chains offer more convenience, wider selection, better service, and lower prices. It is assumed that chains create jobs and generate additional tax revenues. Economic development policy that offers incentives and grants and builds infrastructure to attract chains is based on these assumptions. When we look past the assumptions we discover that the public costs may outweigh the gains.

Chains have a place in the economy but does it make sense to use our tax dollars to give large corporations an advantage over locally-owned, independents?

Large chains reduce retail diversity. Reduced competition leaves the consumer at the mercy of absentee-owned companies that can raise prices or abandon the community.

Stacy Mitchell points out , "Local businesses enrich the civic fabric. Small merchants care about their communities more because they are part of those communities. The taxes they pay provide services, like schools and police and parks, that they and their families use. Small merchants give to community causes more than their big competitors. Their purchases and profits tend to circulate within and strengthen the local economy rather than flowing to distant suppliers or corporate headquarters."

UPDATED: Scribner Place: Same questions, same answers, different meeting.

The Wednesday Courier-Journal reports on yesterday’s city/county Scribner Place meeting.

Floyd may aid Scribner Place; Officials wary of 16-year commitment, by Ben Zion Hershberg, bhershberg@courier-journal.com (short shelf life for C-J links).

An excerpt:

Several county officials said Floyd could provide up to about $135,000 a year to help finance the Scribner Place project in downtown New Albany -- but they didn't know if they could commit the money for 16 years, as city officials requested.

Given that the C-J’s Hershberg generally is an impeccable source for the utterances of grandstanding oppositionists on the city council, but none are included in his article today, one must wonder whether the Gang of Four even attended the meeting.

Perhaps they chose to dial them in.

----

Wednesday afternoon update: County board gets answers about Scribner Place, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor.

Tribune editorial: It's time to begin building Scribner Place.

As city and county officials met today to discuss funding for Scribner Place, and the level of participation by the county in the downtown renewal project, the Tribune contributed yet another strong editorial endorsement of Scribner Place -- along with an almost exasperated expression of impatience.

It's time for both city and county officials to come together, reach an agreement and begin building ... Scribner Place is too important to downtown New Albany just to let it wither away ... People are getting tired of talking. It's time to start building.

NA Confidential was unable to attend today's meeting owing to work commitments. Did you go? If so, was the gathering worthy of comment?

Note: Tribune editorials are not archived on line.

Commissioners to host Scribner Place extravaganza this afternoon as Luddite ox carts converge on Hauss Square.

On Tuesday afternoon at 5:00 p.m., the Floyd County Commissioners are hosting the long-overdue Scribner Place fact gathering carnival and medicine show.

City, county talk Scribner Place, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor.

For the very first time, and perhaps the last, the County Commissioners, County Council, City Council and Mayor James Garner all will come together under one big rhetorical tent in the friendly confines of the second-floor commissioners' room to discuss the project and to provide the city council's obstructionist Gang of Four with its largest peer audience of the year.

Accordingly, by astutely bribing 1st District Councilman Dan Coffey's chief advisor, Lucky Elmo, with a bottle of MD 20/20, NA Confidential has obtained a carbon copy of CM Coffey's internal memorandum for this afternoon's meeting.

It has been edited for legibility.

1. Resend Scribner Place ordinance (not air mail - too expensive).
2. If they won't resend it, move to put it on the table for all to see.
3. With handy Dick Tracy gear, burn it ... FIRE! FIRE!!!



The meeting today is open to the public, but there will be no public speaking time.

Happy days are here again: New Albany has an Applebee's -- can flush toilets be far behind?

If you’re looking for firm proof that I sincerely, genuinely want the Tribune to be a better newspaper, look no further.

Free of charge, here’s a labor saving, ready-to-use template for the Tribune reporter who draws the short straw and must stoop to herald the arrival of Applebee’s in New Albany.

online.com/articles/2005/07/18/news/business/business01.txt">Applebee’s comes to Albany, Oregon, by Alex Paul, Albany Democrat-Herald.

His or her research thus completed, the lucky Tribune reporter can proceed directly to the new Applebee’s on Grant Line Road (conveniently located within stumbling distance of Wal-Mart), camera in hand, and photograph the groovy “neighborhood wall,” which incorporates unique local memorabilia to help distinguish the 1,700 “neighborhood” locations of Applebee’s in 49 states.

Looking for the other side to the story? Not a problem, either, because I'm happy to oblige.

Visit my buddy Lew Bryson’s web site and read his classic essay, “Death to Chain Restaurants.”

An excerpt:

Why is a successful chain restaurant bad for my town?
Because it sucks up loan money that local, unique businesses could be using. A banker will always loan money to a guy with a chain restaurant franchise over a guy with a new idea: the chain idea is safe, proven, and bankable. It's also boring, leveling, and is never going to make your town a destination. Sure, it's convenient, it's popular, it's reliable. But what kind of great new food is going to come from a place that gets its potatoes pre-peeled and pre-sliced in 100 lb. plastic bags from a depot 500 miles away? Will people from far away come to your town, shop in the other stores in your town, and tell other people where they live to go to your town...because of your local Ruby Tuesday's? No, but I've done all of that for the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, NY, and it's worth the trip.

The last time Lew came into town, we skipped the Cracker Barrel and had breakfast at Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville.

You get the drift.

The Curmudgeon visits the Lions Club for beer talk.

At the behest of Maury Goldberg, I was privileged tonight to speak to the weekly gathering of the Lions Club at Tommy Lancaster's restaurant on Market Street.

Although blogging was briefly touched upon, the bulk of the discussion was devoted to beer and brewing, and the club members were attentive and brimming with excellent questions.

The fried chicken wasn't shabby, either. Not only does the Lions Club feed guest speakers, but they also award them a nice framed certificate.

Thanks to Maury for the invitation! I had a marvelous time.

"Those nickels and dimes are ours," growled the councilman.

3rd District councilman Steve Price has announced a major discovery in his quest to locate New Albany's missing nickels and dimes.

CM Price, shown here exploring a sinkhole at the base of Brambleberry Knob, has unearthed a rusty Prince Albert pipe tobacco can with 14 nickels, 8 dimes and 3 quarters, adding up to a record haul of $2.25.

Unfortunately, the desperately needed pocket change may not belong to the city owing to the sinkhole's location in the boundary area between city and county.

Floyd County councilman and finance minister Larry McAllister has offered to arm wrestle CM Price for the booty, saying "we've got trials to pay for."

But fellow city councilman Dan Coffey believes CM McAllister is mistaken, and that CM Price's hard-earned find is his to keep -- for donation to the depleted city coffers.

In a party line call, Coffey told reporters, "it just goes to show that they didn't need cell phones, ordinance enforcement or city courts back in Prince Albert's time, and neither do me -- I mean, we."

Monday morning contemplation: "Principles for Cultivation of Our Economy."

Recently NA Confidential was sent this link to the Creative Tampa Bay web site:
Principles for Cultivatation of Our Economy.

These principles are so exciting that I'm reprinting them.

Readers interested in workable strategies for fulfilling New Albany's untapped potential are urged to look beyond the morbid miasma of negativity that we're currently being urged to accept as our miserable fate, and forward to how ideas like these can be applied to the future development of New Albany.

To be progressive is to "promote or favor progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods."

Certainly at the forefront of these ideas and methods is a recognition of the value of creativity, diversity, authenticity and responsibility, as outlined below.
----

Creativity is fundamental to being human and is a critical resource to individual, community and economic life. Creative communities are vibrant, humanizing places, nurturing personal growth, sparking cultural and technological breakthroughs, producing jobs and wealth, and accepting a variety of life styles and culture.

CreativeTampaBay is committed to the growth, prosperity and excellence of communities, and all who live and work there.

We believe in the vision and the opportunities of a future driven by the power of ideas. Ideas are the growth engines of tomorrow, so the nurturing of the communities where ideas can flourish is the key to success. Ideas take root where creativity is cultivated and creativity thrives where communities are committed to ideas.

Creativity resides in everyone, everywhere, so building a community of ideas means empowering all people with the ability to express and use the genius of their own creativity and bring it to bear as responsible citizens.
These principles are our call to action.

PRINCIPLES:

Cultivate and reward creativity. Everyone is part of the value chain of creativity. Creativity can happen at anytime, anywhere, and it’s happening in our communities right now. Pay attention.

Invest in the infrastructure that fosters creativity. That includes arts and culture, nightlife, the music scene, restaurants, artists and designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, affordable spaces, lively neighborhoods, spirituality, education, density, public spaces and third places.

Embrace diversity. It gives birth to creativity, innovation and positive economic impact. People of different backgrounds and experiences contribute a diversity of ideas, expressions, talents and perspectives that enrich communities. This is how ideas flourish and build vital communities.

Support the connectors. Collaborate to compete in a new way to get everyone in the game.

Value risk-taking. Convert a “no” climate into a “yes” climate. Invest in opportunity-making, not just problem-solving. Tap into the creative talent, technology and energy in our communities. Challenge conventional wisdom.

Be authentic. Identify the value you add and focus on those assets where you can be unique. Dare to be different, not simply the look-alike of another community. Resist monoculture and homogeneity.

Invest in and build on quality of place. While inherited features such as history, climate, natural resources and population are important, other critical features such as arts and culture, open and green spaces, vibrant downtowns and centers of learning can be built and strengthened.

Remove barriers to creativity, such as mediocrity. Those carriers include intolerance, disconnectedness, sprawl, poverty, bad schools, exclusivity and social and environmental degradation.

Take personal responsibility for change in your community. Improvise. Make things happen. Development is a “do-it-yourself” enterprise.

Honor the creativity in every person. High quality, lifelong education is critical to developing and retaining creative individuals as a resource for communities.

We accept the responsibility to be the stewards of creativity in our communities. We understand the ideas and principles in this document and will adapt them to reflect our communities’ unique needs and assets. We commit to ourselves and each other that we will go back to our communities and infuse these ideas in our personal lives, social lives, work lives, neighborhoods, homes, organizations and habits and share the accomplishments with each other so that we all can move forward and succeed together in a more creative Tampa Bay.

A reminder: NA Confidential's policy on reader comments is explained.

Newcomers, please take note.

NA Confidential follows a policy with respect to your comments.

First, you must be registered with blogger.com according to the procedures specified. This is required not as a means of directing traffic to blogger.com, but to reduce the instances of flaming and anonymous attacks.

Second, although pen names are perfectly acceptable, I must know your identity (and, of course, will keep it confidential).

To reiterate, I insist upon this solely to lessen the frequency of malicious anonymity, which plagues certain other blogs hereabouts.

You may e-mail me at the address given within my profile and explain who you are. Failure to comply means that your comments may be deleted.

Thanks for reading, and please consider becoming a part of the community here, one that is respectful of the prerequisites of civilized discourse.

The editor strikes back.

In today’s edition of the Tribune, Managing Editor Chris Morris devotes the editorial slot to a ruminative exploration of the comparative ethical merits of atheism and Christianity.

Not!

Actually, Chris's editorial urges New Albany and Providence high schools to resume their annual football match.

Amusingly, he prefaces the piece thusly:

This column, which deals with football, is for all of my blog buddies who say all I do is write about sports.

Good one, Chris.

Speaking of the always reliable advice to write about what you know, I'm ready to begin my beer column whenever there's space. C'mon, Chris, we go way back -- and you have a book section now, and what goes better with books than beer?

Just a thought. Now, back to the preview of this afternoon's crucial A's - Orioles game.

Courier-Journal says: "Change in sanitation legal."

Lapping the absentee Tribune, today's Courier-Journal reports:

The way apparently has been cleared for New Albany Mayor James Garner to proceed with his plan to privatize the city's sanitation department.

Change in sanitation legal, say attorneys; New Albany mayor plans to hire private trash hauler, by Ben Zion Hershberg, bhershberg@courier-journal.com (short shelf life for C-J links).

The C-J’s Hershberg continues:

Lawyers for Garner and the City Council agreed this week that the mayor is within his authority in negotiating a contract with a private garbage-hauling company.

But, as always, there’s darkness on the horizon:

His union will file suit against the city if it completes the contract with Industrial Disposal, (union president Mickey) Thompson said. He said it doesn't believe Garner followed state requirements for privatizing, and he thinks Garner failed to negotiate in good faith when he completed a new contract with the union last month without saying that he planned to privatize.

Naturally, the scenario would not be complete without vaudevillian grandstanding by our local legislative body’s most consistently dim bulb:

Councilman Dan Coffey said he plans to propose an ordinance at the next council meeting that would make the sanitation department's budget a part of the city's general fund, removing it from the sewer board budget.

That would require budget cuts in other departments, Coffey said, but would keep sanitation a part of city government, as the public wants. He said he doesn't know yet how much support the ordinance will get from other council members.

Perhaps CM Coffey and his “no progress at any price” obstructionists on the council might donate their yearly “discretionary” district income to the sanitation bail-out.

Surely the council also possesses some form of travel stipend that could be thrown into the pot.

Of course, the 3rd District’s Steve Price remains diligently on the hunt for nickels and dimes, this morning joining the bemused catfish for a stroll on the bottom of Silver Creek.

OEO Badger visits ESSNA's meeting; Gang of Four/Five conspicuously absent.

“I’m going to be living at the police department.”
Newly appointed OEO Pam Badger.

Officer Badger spoke at the monthly meeting of the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association on Thursday evening, introducing herself to a packed room and providing an ambitious outline of her busy months ahead.

It should be noted that neither 3rd District Councilman Steve Price, nor his council colleagues Coffey, Schmidt, Kochert and Seabrook – all of whom have crassly and incessantly politicized the selection of an ordinance enforcement officer as part of an ongoing insurrection against the 21st century– were in attendance tonight.

Surely they read notice of the meeting in NA Confidential?

New Albany’s new ordinance enforcement officer indicated that she is charged with residential, not commercial, enforcement of those ordinances dealing with junk, garbage, weeds, old cars and the like. Structural issues pertaining to homes remain the responsibility of the Building Commissioner, and of course relevant health issues go to the Health Department.

Officer Badger welcomes public input. First, she will issue warnings about violations, and then write citations for problems that go unremedied. In those cases that require city action, the property owner will be billed for the clean-up services by adding these charges to his or her property taxes.

Title searches and follow-ups will take much time, said Officer Badger. She’ll be working with the city attorney and the city clerk to ensure that fines are collected and actions initiated.

Association members in attendance chimed in with horror stories, a few of which can be glimpsed from the meeting site at Muir Manor, and as they did so, I was reminded of a bicycle ride I took a few weeks ago, one that brought me into CM Seabrook’s neighborhood.

It’s off of Klerner Lane, relatively near to Indiana University Southeast, and comprised of relatively new homes – far from ostentatious, but indisputably nice, with well tended lawns and gutters generally attached to the roofs.

Without exception, the homes seemed to be single-family dwellings, and I couldn’t find a single duplex with mattresses, broken furniture and weather-beaten appliances stacked on the porch.

Searching in vain for plywood sheets covering broken or missing glass, or chest-high weeds, or abandoned house stripped of interior walls and all plumbing, or impromptu street side body shops, or festive dancing rats, I concluded that property values in such a neighborhood must remain fairly stable over time.

Riddle me this, Mr. Seabrook: What sort of “suit” would a city councilman wear if it could be proven that continued inaction on ordinance enforcement bears a direct correlation to diminishing property values in parts of the city that need it the most?

Here’s a clue: We’re a nation of … what?

Get it? Ready for a bit of comparative study?

Sounds like fun.

It’s regrettable when people who claim to know better don’t behave that way, but if you’ve lived in New Albany for any length of time, you already understand that this city is cursed – wracked, lashed, afflicted – with painfully low standards of achievement.

It isn’t clear why this is so, although we may surmise that the wretchedness of our condition has become exacerbated during the most recent decades of the city’s two centuries of existence, because if our ancestors had gone about their business the way we go about ours, there would be no city here to be serially neglected.

Over time, certainly in conjunction with societal changes that are forever beyond the immediate control of any person involved with municipal governance, but just as surely stemming in large measure from an institutionalized absence of creativity on the part of the city’s “movers and shakers,” there has arisen a culture of non-compliance with certain of the civilized world’s basic assumptions.

Specifically, these are the assumptions that have been formulated so as to contribute to the overall well being of people who live close together in an urban setting.

Officer Badger now begins the task of assisting the community to reclaim its sense of compliance with these basic shared assumptions, but as she does so, rancorous political sniping against the very nature of her task continues unabated from members of the city council who have careened so far out of control that if New Albany’s mayor were to announce that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, they’d lapse into default accusatory pontification without so much as looking at the sky to see if it might be true.

Does the Gang of Four, and its occasional cohort and fellow enabler from the Republican side of the aisle, really have a commitment to cleaning up New Albany?

Or, like CM Kochert chief among them, do they feel that it’s a vote-losing proposition? Something else that can be blamed on Mayor Garner after they’ve done all they can to sabotage it?

Councilmen, it’s time to ditch the phony Pilate routine and save the dull nods for someone gullible – Forrest Gump, perhaps – and step up to the plate now with a strong and unequivocal public expression of support for ordinance enforcement and Officer Badger’s gutsy foray into places where most of you fear to tread.

Not neglected properties ... but accountability.

Send your statements to NA Confidential for publication – and be a part of the solution by leading, not politicking.

Blogplace safety: "Small" beer for "little" people?

A customer just called to let me know that my posting on the Lupulin Land Harvest Hop Fest attracted concern over at The Random Objection Generator blog:

Anonymous said...

4th Lupulin Land Harvest Hop Fest at Rich O's begins Friday, October 7. Once again, we’ll be exceeding OSHA’s legal limits on IBU’s per square foot of floor space when Lupulin Land 2005 begins on Friday, October 7.

anyone who is concerned about Richos blatantly violating OSHA should contact Indiana OSHA about this

2:56 PM, August 25, 2005

The term International Bittering Units (IBU) refers to a way of quantifying hop bitterness in a beer. Since it's a hop fest, there'll be more bitter beers than usual, but to my knowledge, this measurement falls outside OSHA's domain.

It would appear that I'm skyrocketing in popularity down in Tiny Town, with a bashability quotient approaching that of the mayor:

Anonymous said...

well maybe it wont violate OSHA but it might violate the fire code

3:48 PM, August 25, 2005

You'll have to go there yourself to see how the thread plays out.

I'm bored.

Mark your calendars: Harvest Homecoming and Lupulin Land, this October.

Looking ahead to October, we see that Saturday, October 1 is the date for the Harvest Homecoming parade, followed by booth daze from Thursday through Sunday (October 6 through 9).

In the spirit of the homecoming celebration, but also as an alternative to the Bud Light mentality that tends to pervade the annual HH experience, we at Rich O's, Sportstime and the New Albanian Brewing Company decided to coordinate the opening of our annual harvest hop festival with the Harvest Homecoming booth weekend.

4th Lupulin Land Harvest Hop Fest at Rich O's begins Friday, October 7.

There's always a chance that by HH 2006, some of these beers will be available downtown as well.

Newly appointed OEO begins work as the hunt for spare change continues.

Volunteer Hoosier may have broken the story first, but here are two local media takes on yesterday’s appointment of Pam Badger as OEO:

Long-awaited code-enforcement position is filled in New Albany, by Ben Zion Hershberg, bhershberg@courier-journal.com (short shelf life for C-J links).

City hires enforcement officer, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor.

Officer Badger will attend this Thursday's meeting of the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association, at 7:00 p.m. at Muir Manor (corner of 13th Street and East Spring Street).

In other news ...

A team of volunteers headed by 3rd District CM Steve Price found five more nickels and two dimes in a Crown Royal bag hidden beneath a loose cement slab behind the City-County Building.

CM Price and "concern taxpayer" are demanding a full investigation.

3rd District’s CM Price: “I’m chasing nickels and dimes/ While the rest of the world passes me by.”*

Both local newspapers provide Tuesday coverage of the city council’s budgetary work session yesterday.

First, excerpts from the Tribune’s Council debates sanitation fate, by Amany Ali, City Editor.

Working through a proposed budget for 2006 for the City of New Albany was the intention of a work session last night, but most of the talk among City Council members was how jobs in the Sanitation Department could be saved. Last night's session was the third held by the council.

Councilman Steve Price thinks the Sanitation Department can be saved by making cuts in several areas, including contract services, travel expenses for some city employees and excessive cellular telephone bills. He also thinks the city can use about $265,000 of Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) money to help bail out sanitation. By doing that, the city would reduce its EDIT contribution for Scribner Place by giving $137,000.

"I'm just knocking nickels and dimes off," Price said.

Over at the Courier-Journal, the regular reporter wastes no time in lending undeserved credence to the Gang of Four’s continually misleading assertion that the Great Sanitation Debate of ’05 and the Scribner Place project are linked:

Members of the New Albany City Council discussed cutting the city's 2006 budget yesterday to save the Sanitation Department from privatization, with some of the talk focusing on the city's financial commitment to the Scribner Place development downtown …

… "The cuts are here" if city leaders are willing to make them, Price said.

New Albany council looks for ways to save sanitation, by Ben Zion Hershberg, bhershberg@courier-journal.com (short shelf life on C-J links).

It’s a sad day when the council’s Gang of Four has become too numbingly predictable to satirize, but at some point the pervasive mediocrity of these time-serving obstructionists simply must be allowed to stand on its own lack of merit.

To my 3rd District CM: Can you articulate a vision for the city of New Albany that properly embodies the aspirations of your own district?

If you cannot, then why did you seek election in the first place?

---

* with apologies to Social Distortion, the musical group, whose song “Nickels and Dimes” is quoted in the title.

Officer Pam Badger appointed OEO by police chief Harl.

Well, if I'd gone to the Public Works meeting as intended ...

At any rate, the ordinance enforcement era in New Albany begins now. Read a brief account at Volunteer Hoosier: A Red-Letter Day in NA.

Apologies ...

... to Tom, Helen, Greg and New Alb Annie. I vowed to attend the public works meeting today, but there's too much on my plate and I simply can't make it.

Next week looks more promising.

A homebrewing day at the Kentucky State Fair ... 1996.

At the Potable Curmudgeon's beer blog, an account of a day working the home brew booth at the Kentucky State Fair.

PC '96 - A Day at the Fair.