This Spring Street utility pole is on the right side of New Albany street grid history.

October 24 update: My two-way street project and how you can help.

Don't look at me. Well, maybe ... after all, we drank a fair amount of beer during Downtown Displacement Days, and who knows? But I don't remember doing it.

Reminder: "Of Place" at the Carnegie, through January 11, 2014.

We attended the exhibit opening on Friday, and to me, it's the most relevant Bicentennial-themed event of them all -- although The Artists of the Wonderland Way, also at the Carnegie earlier this year, was excellent as well. Really, really good stuff. Don't miss it.

October 18, 2013 – January 11, 2014
New Albany Bicentennial Exhibition: Of Place
Tiffany Carbonneau and David Modica

Two-way streets: New Albany is worth it, in the neighborhoods AND downtown.

In the excerpt below, we see yet again that while it's easy to blithely toss around phrases like "quality of life," applying such values across a wider spectrum not exclusively defined by typically well-heeled, upper-strata, white-bread preconceptions can lead to befuddlement on the part of those unfamiliar with diverse considerations.

I've chosen lately to focus my limited time to advocating for two way streets from a standpoint of economic development for downtown New Albany's small, independent businesses -- the ones (like my own) that have invested heavily and borne the primary weight of revitalization, with little more than token support by successive administrations.

Although when it comes to infrastructure like streets and sidewalks ... never mind.

The neighborhood revitalization argument against one-way arterial speedways and in favor of two-way streets and accompanying traffic calming measures might be even stronger. By choice, I leave this point to others, but it is a very important plank in the platform. As with downtown businesses, it is critical that the neighborhoods offer tangible evidence of residents in support of a reclaimed street grid, alongside the single most important necessity of all: Two-way street advocates in New Albany vote.

In New Albany, electoral timidity is driving governmental sloth, plain and simple. I'm doing what I can to provide an opposing viewpoint. Join me.

Erika D. Smith: The road to better neighborhoods goes two ways, at the Indy Star

Every morning for 15 years, Elease Womack and David Metzger watched commuters in imposing SUVs and sleek sedans speed past The Unleavened Bread Cafe with barely an upward glance.

That’s what happens when you have a business on a one-way street in a not-so-great neighborhood.

“People couldn’t wait for the stoplight to change and shoot on through to Downtown,” said Metzger, the cafe’s unofficial co-founder.

But that was then. This is now.

Earlier this year, Indianapolis converted one-way Central Avenue into a two-way street between Fall Creek Parkway and East 38th Street. The effect was immediate. Cars that used to fly by the cafe at the corner of Central and East 30th Street now merely cruise past. Nowadays, people look, stop and linger. The entire neighborhood has changed.

“The way in which people look over here — even at the stoplight — is different now than when it was one way,” Metzger said. “It’s more neighborly than it has ever been.”

It’s not just Central, though. Indianapolis has been slowly rethinking the one-way thoroughfare model ...

"Republican defeat, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that."

Smell that? You smell that?

What?

Republican defeat, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that.

[kneels]

I love the smell of Republican defeat in the morning.

We already took a sideward at pretend-Democrat Caesar's disappointment and a much coveted national day of gloating. In the Sunday NYT, Thomas Friedman compares the Tea Party to Hezbollah. And then there's this.

Losing a Lot to Get Little, Jeremy W. Peters (New York Times)

WASHINGTON — For the Republicans who despise President Obama’s health care law, the last few weeks should have been a singular moment to turn its problem-plagued rollout into an argument against it. Instead, in a futile campaign to strip the law of federal money, the party focused harsh scrutiny on its own divisions, hurt its national standing and undermined its ability to win concessions from Democrats. Then they surrendered almost unconditionally.

Faith Ingle Smith: On the right side of New Albany street grid history.

Faith Ingle Smith Law Firm

October 24 update: My two-way street project and how you can help.

Hail to the thief. Long live the chain. I'm comfortably numb.

In conjunction this week with numerous other CNHI chain newspapers, the News and Tribune erected an on-line metered paywall. You'll even have to pay to read the explanation of why you have to pay, except that I already reprinted it.

To summarize conclusions gleaned from recent Twitter exchanges, the cost for electronic access is $10 per month, compared with $15 to receive newsprint according to the US Postal Service's delivery schedule. The "Front Page" it ain't.

Finally the most recent temporary publisher Bill "Sales, Not Content" Hanson has conceded that your monthly tithe will not buy a reprieve from the intrusive roll-over videos and pop-up/over/under, buzzing-gnat-like advertisements that justifiably render the newspaper's on-line interface a local laughingstock. For this reason, I'm in no mood to subscribe. I'm okay with the price, just not paying it to be insulted by a chain.

Last night at Twitter, Jeffersonville-based managing editor Shea Van Hoy reinforced Hanson's earlier insistence that working together, they produce an "excellent community newspaper," by cautioning me not to peek around the paywall.

I would ask, Roger, that you not post entire N&T articles to your blog, as you did w/council story. I'm fine if you want to post a link, as you have in the past. Otherwise, it's theft.

In short:

Roger, there'll be none of that. I've no intention during this life or any other to follow of once acknowledging that time in 2011 when I screwed you over about your column after you did me a favor, but if you would, please resume directing traffic toward our paywalled website, as NAC has done for nine years running with scant thanks from us -- but anything else is mere thievery, to be quelled by sending the Community Newspaper Gendarmes to your back door ... of course, as soon as we fly them up on coach from Alabama, to which a sizeable portion of the $120 yearly cost will be going to Dixiecrat pensioners, anyway, even as we continue to insist that somehow, in some convoluted and wholly imaginary way with fingers crossed behind our backs, we're not a chain.

Shrug. Yawn. Somewhere, a dog fertilizes a bush.

This topic effectively has jumped the shark, along with Doug England's future in politics and the notion that this city by sanity's edge actually possesses a downtown economic development strategy. With the periodic exception of lifers past the point of mobility, chain outlets typically are staffed by folks eventually moving elsewhere, to other chains, and so it will be with this one, too. Maybe the next batch will be better. Maybe not. Whatever. In the final analysis, it just isn't worth giving a tinker's damn one way or another.

As we await Trib Daniel’s inevitable rejoinders -- touchingly, he is the newspaper's Jim Fowler, wrestling diabetic hippos in the oozing swamp as his upper management emulates Marlon Perkins, sipping chilled daiquiris in the hovering executive copter -- permit me to note that I’m happy to comply with Van Hoy's warning.

Henceforth, I’ll offer only rough paraphrasings of whatever I read at the 'Bune and ‘Bamagator ... however I manage to read it, and as seldom as possible. After all, I'm far less a thief than a spy in the house of bile.

Cheers.

Bail, Caesar: Bob surveys game-changers in this golden oldie quote.

Business First (January 21, 2011) delivers the goods with this hilarious CeeSaw moment, as the councilman stresses that it is a far better idea for the city to build a $15 million parking garage and give it to a penniless investor without a track record than using a fraction of this amount to empower upstairs occupancy in existing downtown buildings, including his own, under the faux reasoning that that high-dollar condo inhabitants might buy more diamonds than scruffy hipsters.

Whatever happened to Mainland Properties, anyway? By the time Riverview Towers breathed its last, the ill-fated concept had been altered to exclude the very condos erotically inspiring Caesar. Meanwhile, the same city scrambling to give away parking garage money in this instance as yet has no plan to support economic development downtown, one benefitting the businesses already here, which have yet to receive $15 of love, much less $15 million.

Is this place effed up, or what?

Level of council support uncertain

The level of support for the proposal from the nine-member New Albany City Council is difficult to gauge.

Councilman Robert Caesar, a downtown New Albany business owner, is firmly behind the plan, but he thinks support for the venture is mixed among the council members.

It will be a tough sell for some, he said, but he believes there could be five or six votes in favor of funding the garage.

“I think this will be a great project for the city of New Albany,” he said. “It’s going to give us, for the first time, a gathering point for the city,” similar to the Belvedere on Louisville’s waterfront. Caesar, who owns Endris Jewelers, said the condo aspect of the project, in particular, is exciting to him.

“If we could ever get living spaces down here, that is a game-changer that is unbelievable.”

The city is thinking about doing road shit. Really. It says so, over there behind that wall.

There was an article by Daniel Suddeath in the local chain newspaper about council members quizzing administration officials 'bout infrastructure projects: "New Albany City Council questions administration about projects." Tunnel under the paywall to read it, or peruse this nifty paraphrasing.

The miracle is that City Hall sent anyone to the council meeting when there existed a chance they might have to reveal top secret plans. But David Duggins, who serves as the city's Economic Development and Redevelopment Director Everywhere Except Downtown was there on Thursday.

Duggins said that anything you've heard about the Slate Run Road, Mount Tabor Road and Captain Frank Road projects is true, unless it isn't. All are being contemplated, unless they aren't. The mayor will consider modifications, unless he won't. The usual suspects from Pool "A" will design these projects and build them, unless other usual suspects from Pool "B" are chosen instead. To reveal more would mean having to kill us all, and the street department can't manage such a clean-up.

Councilman John Gonder then made a forceful presentation on the topic of sidewalks in the context of safety, and mentioned that since the city is in a position to massively fund no-brainer quality of life issues like aquatic complexes, there obviously is money for basic walkability elsewhere. Duggins answered that the city had contacted the usual engineering suspects and would begin formulating a secret sidewalk plan for Captain Frank Road.

Finally, council person Diane Benedetti asked Duggins about the long discussed and always delayed Slate Run Road project. Resisting the impulse to provide Benedetti with the most obvious reasons ...

If you don't vote with the mayor, you can't have any road work.

How can you have any road work if you don't vote with the mayor?

... or suggesting that she move to Silver Hills where the streets are paved with Caesar's Gold, Duggins remained composed and replied that of course, it is being considered just as top secretly as all the others.

In other news, the Arts Council will permanently loan a Barney Bright sculpture to Bicentennial Park, where everyone hopes it won't be vandalized during the annual Harvest Homecoming Swill Walk.

Is it beer thirty yet?

No wonder Bob Caesar was in a rotten mood last night.

After all, his Republican Party was routed in the Shutdown Showdown, and for a closeted GOP Man, it's gotta be tough at times like that, right? All the Mogen David Blackberry on ice and onion dip ladled out for the celebration, and poof -- all gone.

Steve Stemler probably feels even worse.

The good news is that CeeSaw needn't rely on city council insurance for one moment longer, because the Health Insurance Marketplace is open.

online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/10/obama-declares-national-day-of-gloating.html">OBAMA DECLARES NATIONAL DAY OF GLOATING, posted by Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Residents of the District of Columbia were roused from their sleep by a massive fireworks display over the White House just after midnight, as President Obama declared what he called “a national day of gloating.”

“It would not be productive for this nation, going forward, to crow about our victory over political adversaries,” he said in a nationally televised address. “So let’s get it all out of our systems today.”

Council budget: Quality of life disbursements from the BOW to include Captain Crunch Numbers.

I suppose that ordinarily, I'd be linking to a newspaper account of last evening's city council meeting, seeing as I didn't attend. Unfortunately, it required so many visits to the 'Bune's web site in an effort to make the comment function work correctly that I exhausted my metered supply of visits, reminding me of useful information provided by Bluegill yesterday:

Community Newspaper Holdings Inc,, the parent company of the New and Tribune, owns newspapers all over the country, including about 14 in Indiana. They share a common web format so development costs are spread across all of them. Likewise, they're rolling out paywalls across the country as well. With that in mind, a digital New York Times subscription is $15 per month. A News and Tribune digital subscription is $10 per month. Really?

In turn, this reminds me of even more useful information at the website of the American Independent Business Alliance with reference to what defines an independent local business. Chain tech support might contradict this definition.

But wait ... linked to the article via Twitter ... an artful cut and paste ... and voila! It's a stolen base, and a city budget, although no mention is made of the drama reported earlier in the evening by @Iamhoosier:

Meeting has been calm but the brief confrontation between Coffey & Caesar was as "bad" as I've seen in the years I've been attending.

To which I replied:

Caesar is as wretched a councilman as I've seen in the years I've been attending. Absolutely, positively sans a clue.

Take it away, "local" decision-makers.

---

New Albany council approves $22M budget, by Daniel Suddeath

While the Floyd County Council grappled with a $3.6 million shortfall Thursday evening, the New Albany City Council passed its 2014 budget last night with only one “no” vote.

The $22 million fiscal plan includes a 3 percent raise for nonunion employees, including all elected officials except for council members. Councilman Dan Coffey called for the council’s raise to be removed earlier this month, and the adjusted salaries for elected officials were approved on final reading Thursday. The city’s budget is expected to be balanced, though final approval will come later from the state.

“They were very professional and very diligent,” Councilman Scott Blair said of Mayor Jeff Gahan’s administration in preparing the 2014 budget.

However Councilwoman Diane McCartin-Benedetti cast the lone no vote against the budget, in part because she said she struggled to obtain some information from the administration. After the meeting, Benedetti said she had requested a breakdown of the percentage increase per department in funding for the 2014 budget compared to this year.

She said she initially made the request at the onset of budget negotiations several weeks ago, and again asked for the breakdown this week. Though Benedetti said she eventually crunched the numbers herself, she questioned why the administration failed to provide more information to the council before they voted on a $22 million budget.

“If I can’t get the information I’m asking for, how can I pass a budget?,” she said.

One particular aspect of the budget that Benedetti questioned was the addition of $200,000 to the Board of Public Works and Safety for quality-of-life projects. Benedetti and Councilman Kevin Zurschmiede opposed the council’s decision earlier this year when the body appropriated $100,000 to the board of works for quality-of-life projects.

Some of those funds were used for the city’s summer concert series, and $1,000 was spent by the board for an Independence Day celebration in Coffey’s district.

Coffey was one of the main organizers of the event, which featured live music and fireworks, and requested the funds from the board of works.

During the meeting, Benedetti asked Shane Gibson, an attorney in the city’s legal department, if the administration would agree to earmark $1,000 per council district and also set aside some funds for At-large council members so that each can have similar events throughout the year. Gibson said the administration would consider any requests brought forward by the council pertaining to quality-of-life projects.

Benedetti said following the meeting that she’s still uneasy with an additional $200,000 being set aside for a board that’s appointed.

“I’m all about quality-of-life, but that’s a huge number to put at their discretion for them to decide what is quality-of-life,” she said.

Benedetti added that she wants to cooperate with the administration, but also believes that information should be made more easily available to council members. She also questioned Council President Pat McLaughlin during the course of the meeting about the status of the annual city audit performed by the state.

State auditors have been in New Albany wrapping up their work, and Gibson said the audit may be published sometime next month. Administration officials said no drastic issues have been pointed out by auditors in regards to the city’s finances or procedures.

Benedetti said that the audit is another example of an issue that the council needs to be made aware of without having to ask.

The budget was approved 7-1. Councilman Greg Phipps was absent from the meeting.

The Art Store: On the right side of New Albany street grid history.

The Art Store

October 24 update: My two-way street project and how you can help.

Panic attack: "Craft Writing" symposium coming in February, with me as a speaker.

I was asked some months ago to participate in a symposium called "Craft Writing: Beer, The Digital, and Craft Culture," to be held at the University of Kentucky (my mom's alma mater) on February 15, 2014.

Now it's dawning on me that among a group of stellar and high-powered craft beer luminaries, including personal heroes like Stan Hieronymus, Mitch Steele and -- gasp -- Garrett Oliver, I might well be the most recent call-up from Double-A ball.

Will I be hazed?

A Twitter friend suggested mild intoxication as a coping strategy, but why depart from the tried and gonzo habit of "full" intake? Perhaps breakfast at West 6th would do the trick.

But seriously: My usual last-minute improv routine may need some polishing for this one. If I remain the localist and embrace the radicalism inherent in being an unknown, it should be okay.

Practice, practice, practice.

Do they still make Mr. Microphones?

ON THE AVENUES: Incompatibility City.

ON THE AVENUES: Incompatibility City.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

As practiced in the art of sedition, as opposed to seduction, it is now time for me to report on the current atmospheric condition in New Albany, where we’re all here because we’re not all there.

Most importantly, Harvest Homecoming’s shelf life has reached its blessed annual end, and all we need do now is spend our remaining autumn weekends picking up the discarded garbage and assorted detritus of (fill in the blank with persistently inflated numbers) weekend visitors, few of whom were able (or cared) to see what defines downtown 360 days out of the year, because the fest’s hoary and increasingly suspect business model does not support recognition, much less engagement, with alien concepts like downtown revitalization.

On Monday morning, I put it this way:

Downtown business owners commiserated on Twitter, welcoming a resumption of the daily working world. It's a reminder that New Albany's version of Groundhog Day occurs in early October. When Harvest Homecoming is here, the blinders are donned with a speed hitherto unwitnessed. City Hall (any one of them, actually, dating back to the Ford Administration) emerges with trepidation into Hauss Square, is abruptly terrified that it might see its own shadow -- and then we get six more years of status quo.

Seeing as America’s version of Labor Day was removed from its worldwide play date of May 1 so as to better expunge the taint of deadly socialism, the latter generally referred to nowadays as “Obamacare,” perhaps it makes perfect sense for New Albany’s Groundhog Day to take four full days, not one, and to happen when the leaves are falling.

In our municipality’s case, it isn’t workers’ rights but uncomfortable irony that bedevils the citizenry, second only to bed bugs, and so the dire threat posed by ironic detachment must be recast into simpler truths, like the prevailing fiction that Harvest Homecoming has anything whatever to do with economic development apart from the money necessary to perpetuate the fest itself.

---

Happily, there was lots of music around town last weekend, some of it engaged by Harvest Homecoming’s internal trendsetters (remember how Starship had that one big hit, since judged one of the worst pop songs in history, and resting atop the charts before many readers were even born?), and the remainder hired and promoted by downtown’s existing, redefining, paradigm-changing 365-days-a-year businesses.

Consequently the sweetest tune to my ears was being played this week, after the festival concluded, coming in the dulcet tones of Harvest Homecoming’s reigning apparatus murmuring morose dismay at smaller evening crowds on the waterfront – you know, the place where there’s a tent with no good beer, which of course reflects the prehistoric ethos of the 1980s … hence the sheer, enduring embarrassment of touting the theme “We Built This City” when the ideas purporting to serve as framework for the construction site are as stale as the rancid frying oil currently coating downtown’s one-way streets.

It’s okay by me. They’ll just blame it on Wick’s, not Fringe Fest. Maybe that’s why the most popular game in town during Harvest Homecoming wasn’t the free throw shoot on Market, but the target shooting on State, as fire and police arms of the same city previously granting Wick’s permission to operate in defiance of orange-clad hegemony spent the weekend harassing it.

Meanwhile, the Harvest Homecoming takeaway never changes, does it?

Harvest Homecoming relies on a business model that once made slight sense, but doesn’t any longer. For Harvest Homecoming’s current business model to succeed, it must be imposed on a geographical area with which it openly conflicts, in which a new generation of businesses are leading downtown’s revival all year long, not just a few groundhogged-up days in fall.

This lamentable conflict gets worse every year, and it can be mediated by only one entity: City government. After all, Harvest Homecoming takes place as it does, where it does, because the city allows it – not only that, but also subsidizes it. But downtown no longer provides a conveniently empty slate upon which Harvest Homecoming can deploy its own extractive business model to the detriment and marginalization of pre-existing, heavily invested, daily models.

City government simply must be active in brokering solutions, and yet no communication is facilitated. This year the rancor was at an all-time high.

Is anyone listening?

---

You can bet at least one councilman isn’t.

In yet another weekly outbreak of hilarity, it was revealed that Bob Caesar is so tone deaf that he knows only two tunes. One of them is "The 'In' Crowd" -- and the other one isn't.

As a well-scrubbed member of the dominant “leadership” caste, one who doesn’t know what it means to live paycheck to paycheck, CM CeeSaw first regarded bridge tolls as no problem, and now believes yard waste pick-up fees are a breeze, too. His cluelessness was amply rewarded with multiple, scathing comments at the newspaper’s web site, where it got so bad for the self-appointed Emperor of the Street Grid that even Emma took him down:

“I have stood up for you in the past against people who agree with that Baylor guy all the time, but no more. This time, I'm with Baylor. You are OUT OF TOUCH, buddy."

See? I’m really not the only one.

Happy News and Tribune metered paywalling, dear readers. Alabama pensioners deeply appreciate your solicitude and oblivious New Albanism. After all, they're there -- not here.

Gonder: “I’m sure that with a forceful presentation from the mayor, (street changes) would get done quickly."

For my three minutes of public input time this evening, what do you think should be the emphasis?

Two way streets? The annual Harvest Homecoming debacle? The absence of tangible economic development plans for downtown? Ignominious Republican defeat in the showdown charade?

Maybe we need some more parks.

---

New Albany council to take final votes on 2014 budget; No measures on street changes are on the agenda, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Paywall Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Budget items that were easily approved on initial readings are up for final ballots tonight, but a revised plan to study downtown street or to adjust traffic flow will have to wait until another New Albany City Council meeting.

Officials have said that there’s still interest in addressing the city’s downtown traffic grid despite the council’s failure to approve a street survey earlier this month.

That measure — which was sponsored by Councilman Greg Phipps — called for a $60,000 traffic study, but since it didn’t receive majority approval, the legislation died after final reading.

Councilman John Gonder, who is a proponent of two-way traffic for downtown, was one of the three council members that opposed the appropriation. A $60,000 study is unnecessary when there’s a general consensus to change the street pattern downtown, Gonder has maintained.

Some intersections may require a study, but the city possesses employees with the knowledge to figure out how to convert most streets to two-way traffic flow without an expensive and detailed examination, he continued.

But Gonder doesn’t believe the issue has died just because the study didn’t pass.

“I think that getting away from that study is probably counterintuitive, but I think it expedites the process because we don’t have to study something that I’m quite confident we already know the answer to,” Gonder said Wednesday.

Mayor Jeff Gahan has said he’s “generally supportive” of converting some downtown streets to two-way traffic, but has also stated he wants a study administered before any changes are made. Gonder said the mayor has the power to push the street changes through if he chooses to do so.

“I’m sure that with a forceful presentation from the mayor, it would get done quickly,” he said.

Phipps’ measure was approved 4-3 on final reading, but it takes at least 5 votes out of the nine member council to approve legislation.

Council members Scott Blair and Diane McCartin-Benedetti both supported the study on initial readings, but were absent for the final vote.

Blair didn’t outright state his support for two-way streets, but said he still supports funding a study for the potential project.

“I just think we need some direction or some advice from groups or experts that have looked at these issues before,” Blair said. “I think it’s worthwhile to do what we can to enhance our downtown and our street grid.”

Due to procedural rules, the council cannot simply hold another ballot on Phipps’ measure. To garner an appropriation, the measure would have to be changed in some way before it can be again presented to the council.

As for items on the agenda, the council will take a final ballot on the $22 million general fund budget for 2014 this evening. The budget was approved 7-0 on initial readings.

“I think the administration has done a great job with the budget, and we’re fiscally sound,” Blair said.

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. today, Oct. 17, in the third-floor Assembly Room of the City-County Building.

Exchange pub + kitchen: On the right side of New Albany street grid history.

The Exchange pub + kitchen

October 24 update: My two-way street project and how you can help.

Rubber meets road as News and Tribune lowers a metered paywall on the populace.

In the unabridged cut 'n' paste below, the editor of the News and Tribune explains the decision to erect a pay wall, to meter your peeping inside, and to shift comments to Facebook -- where people with real names typically make none of the snide and nasty comments ... er, never mind.

To be honest, I've always maintained that I'd pay for on-line content provided two conditions were met.

First, that the price be lower than antiquated dead tree service, and second, that the publisher-Hanson-ordained video-arcade-style ads go the fug away.

C'mon, it's 2013; one shouldn't be compelled to worry where the mouse's eye roams, lest another of the 'Bama-pension-system-inspired childlike web annoyances be activated. It's just a flip of the switch, right?

So if I pay, jiggle the toggle and silence the dentist.

It appears the price indeed will be lower, and the editor has promised (they're periodically honored, except in 2011) to get back with us with regard to the Hansons, so I suppose we'll see what happens next. My guess is that Bluegill votes against using any blog revenue to pay for the 'Bune's Clark County-centric content, which is quite wise, considering the blog has no revenue. It's a labor of bile, this ... powered by good old-fashioned alcohol, tins of kippers and the occasional nap.

Ladies and gents, give it up for Shea Van Hoy ... but why not the publisher Hanson? I mean, it's proverbial.

---

October 16, 2013

VAN HOY: Website changes begin today; Full access starts; News and Tribune shifting to Facebook platform for web comments

By SHEA VAN HOY

shea.vanhoy@newsandtribune.com

— I had a Facebook “discussion” recently with a few people about the past, present and future of journalism.

Opinions differed on the state of journalism, but I think all agreed that the way news is delivered has changed drastically over the past 15 years.

At my first newspaper job in Kokomo in 1998, our website had just started, and we didn’t really think about writing content specifically for the website, and certainly not for smart phones or tablets, which were years away from becoming a primary means for people to consume news.

Most reporters did not take photos, none of ours shot video and the real debate in the newsroom was when to post an article to the website, as to not “scoop ourselves.”

Soon after I started in Kokomo, the newspaper experimented with charging a fee for viewing online content. It didn’t last long, and the newspaper’s site went back to a totally free platform.

Not sticking with the paid-site plan was a mistake, in my opinion, and the belief that newspapers should charge for online access has only grown on me. It costs money to report, produce and post stories, photos, video and columns to the website. The Internet has never really been “free,” and it’s becoming a more expensive venture with the way consumers want news delivered.

Our reporters, photographers, editors and designers work hard every day to deliver content that readers can’t get anywhere else — in the print edition and on our web and mobile sites.

With that in mind, starting today visitors to newsandtribune.com will see a notice informing them of how many articles they have remaining for free before they will need to pay for what we’re calling Total Access.

Subscribers to the print edition will see their rates rise slightly, but they also will get full access to digital content. We must increase our rates to pay for the technology required for us to stay relevant in an ever-changing media world.

Those subscribers will get the print product and online access. They will also have access to an e-subscription, which will look just like the printed product in PDF form. It’s perfect for keeping up with news happening at home in Southern Indiana while you’re away.

Those who have been reading the paper online and don’t pay for any subscription will now need to either subscribe to Total Access, or choose a digital-only option for a couple of dollars less per month.

This is the way of the world — media outlets around the globe are charging for online or mobile access to the valuable content they produce. We hope you’ll continue to find value in the community-based journalism the News and Tribune news organization produces every day.

Those with questions about Total Access or a digital subscription should call our circulation department at 812-206-2107 or 206-2108.

WEB COMMENTS SHIFT TO FACEBOOK

One of the highlights — and lowlights — of my day as an editor is reading and approving reader comments on our articles and columns at newsandtribune.com.

To clarify, it’s really approving most of them and deleting a few others.

Every so often, a reader takes offense to a comment posted on our website. Believe me, some of the ones we don’t approve would shock you. A handful of the comments are just sickening and make me wonder what would possess someone to take the time to make such heartless posts.

There have been comments making fun of an interview subject’s appearance; there have been taunts aimed at high school athletes; there have been threats; and there have even been very negative comments on a person’s obituary listing online.

That’s about as low as it gets.

As many people know, the process can be anonymous if the reader chooses to use a fake name or email address — or no name at all. There’s not any real accountability, but we’ve attempted to manage the system as best as possible and only rarely received complaints.

That doesn’t mean that there’s not a better way.

With that in mind, the News and Tribune is switching today to a Facebook-based system for commenting on our articles and columns. This means that those who wish to comment must have an active Facebook account.

The main benefit of this is less anonymity and more accountability from those leaving comments — something I hope we all can agree is a good thing.

I have no problem with readers making strong comments, but I have always felt it’s best that those comments come with a real person’s name attached to them — just as we require for letters to the editor and Cheers and Jeers submissions. Using Facebook increases the chance of that happening.

Just like always, readers can click on a story at newsandtribune.com and there will be an option to comment on articles and columns. These will not need an editor’s approval, but the comment will show up with the reader’s Facebook account name and profile photo.

As always, the News and Tribune reserves the right to delete any comment it deems necessary for removal.

We hope that readers agree that a move toward accountability is a good one.

— Editor Shea Van Hoy can be reached by email at shea.vanhoy@newsandtribune.com or by phone at 812-786-5593.

Classic Furniture: On the right side of New Albany street grid history.

Todd Coleman's Classic Furniture

October 24 update: My two-way street project and how you can help.

Indiana craft beer at Inside Indiana Business.

Inside Indiana Business has taken a good, comprehensive look at the craft brewing industry in Indiana. The report  is predictably solid on the economic development boost for the state, but does not neglect the aesthetic side.

There are eight videos here, and all of them are worth watching. If newer videos have been posted by the time you read this, I suspect these still can be found in the "recent" or "archived" sections.

I regret not being able to participate. A staffer from Inside Indiana Business sent an e-mail request via NABC's web site on-line submission form, but unfortunately, it was routed to another server. Had I been able to be there, you can bet I'd have squeezed in a "death to chains" at least once.

Garton Ash: "Americans need to discover how the world sees them."

Read up, tea partiers. You too, KZ.

Americans need to discover how the world sees them, by Timothy Garton Ash (Guardian)

There's little awareness of how the budget crisis has eroded US credibility. It's time for a reverse Christopher Columbus

On Monday, government offices were closed in Washington DC, to mark Columbus Day. Except that most of them had been closed anyway, because of the US government shutdown. As everyone knows, Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator who, in the service of the Spanish crown, supposedly "discovered" America and reported its potential to a wondering world. I have spent the summer in the United States watching, with growing alarm, a country engaged in a degree of self-harming which, if observed in a teenager, would lead any friend to cry "call the doctor at once". As I set course back to Europe, my conclusion is this: America should do a reverse Columbus. The world no longer needs to discover America; but America urgently needs to discover the world's view of America.

Ordinary Americans, and especially the small minority active in Democrat and Republican primaries, must learn more of what people across the globe are thinking and saying about the US. For if you follow that, you realise that the erosion of American power is happening faster than most of us predicted – while the politicians in Washington behave like rutting stags with locked antlers.

The Potable Curmudgeon at LouisvilleBeer.com: "I’m not kidding. Downtown New Albany is a craft beer destination."

Even during Harvest Homecoming ... talk about clashing paradigms.

I’m not kidding. Downtown New Albany is a craft beer destination

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEONOctober 15, 2013

I place little stock in seemingly ubiquitous on-line reader polls, and I don’t personally encourage anyone to vote. In like fashion, the New Albanian Brewing Company refrains from asking its customers and fans to cast dozens of ballots for the sake of the cause. Some of the time we are mentioned in such polls, at […]