Who dunnit? My money's on that copperhead over there.

Yesterday, we considered the Case of the Councilperson's NSP Niece:

Transparency? That's a fine idea. Found any yet?

Therein, we linked to the newspaper's account of this horrendous scandal (italics below by the editor) whilst pondering who was doing who.

New Albany councilwoman subject of conflict-of-interest review; Diane Benedetti’s niece was in process of purchasing NSP home

 ... City Councilman Dan Coffey serves on the redevelopment commission.

“First off, I hope it’s not true. Because if it’s true, what they did put the city in a lot of jeopardy as far as future grants,” he said, as Coffey added he feels sorry for Benedetti’s niece if she ultimately isn’t allowed to move into the home. “But for every person like that involved, there’s somebody else out there that didn’t get a chance.”

Coffey said an independent agency or individual not associated with the project or local officials should also review the situation.

“As a city official, you cannot try to push anything that’s going to benefit yourself or a family member,” he said. 

Now we have yet further unwanted testimony, with the long-silent Gary "The Gary" McCartin weighing in. His words are among the comments at the article on-line (underlined passage below courtesy of the editor).

This is welcome news that finally my daughter can be exonerated for simply taking advantage of a program that allows her to purchase her first home for her and my grandson to live in! My sister had absolutely nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to do to influence, persuade, or effect the transaction with New Directions or anyone associated with the purchase of the home, and the suggestion that anything otherwise is unwarranted and unfair to everyone involved.We are thankful that at the end of this review that it will be transparent that there was and is no conflict of interest, and that the program in fact is working as it was intended to do, and that my daughter can proceed to owning her first home as she so innocently desired to do in the first place. I applaud Mr. Duggins and Mr. Gibson and the staff for requesting this review to insure the assurance of transparency and protections to insure that nothing should jeopardize future funding for such worthwhile projects in the central areas of our community!

First, to even begin fathoming the rampant hypocrisy of The Gary's reference to "worthwhile" centrality, we must turn back the pages of the calendar to January, 2006, and an article in which I quoted a newspaper account of The Gary's downtown redevelopment pontifications: The Gary: An excess of pure, unadulterated ego? Perhaps tolerable in the exurban sprawl, but not relevant to downtown New Albany.

Not everyone is convinced that Scribner Place will be the great catalyst for downtown New Albany. Longtime developer Gary McCartin doesn’t think people are interested in living downtown. And he doesn’t think a YMCA will entice people to do so

… Instead, he thinks people would rather have a yard and live near their church and other conveniences …

… McCartin reviewed the plans for Scribner Place when they were originally introduced by former Mayor Regina Overton.

“My expertise told me it was not a winner,” he said.

McCartin thinks there is hope for downtown. He thinks city officials should use their power of eminent domain to tear down some buildings and determine what would be best to erect. He thinks some part of the downtown could be utilized for discount-priced retailers.

“It’s (about) getting the right facilities,” he said.

That was then, and this is now. It's 2013, and bizarrely, those "right facilities" include NSP housing rehabs, and yet apart from "how the mighty hath fallen" ruminations, who really cares whether The Gary's daughter (Ms. Benedetti's niece) buys one of them, so long as she qualifies according to the parameters of the program?

Dan Coffey apparently does. You see, Dan's currently the City Hall whip on council; Pat McLaughlin may be titular head, but Coffey's the one banging heads to spend millions on selected quality of life projects (let's hope someone in the Gahan administration is keeping track of what is due Coffey for these services), and if The Gary sees fit to publicly "applaud" city officials for exonerating his daughter -- not blame them for bringing it up in the first place -- then Coffey's your man on the scene.

It's artful, at least in that low-rent, oozing sort of way that forever defines this city's underachieving political culture. Coffey wields the hatchet to punish Benedetti for being the sole "Democrat" on council who is refusing to follow the party line on expenditures. Any mud generated lands on the whip, who is accustomed to groveling in it not unlike a slop-flecked hog, and city officials pose angelically off to the side ... message duly dispatched. Afterwards, there'll be cigarettes all around and a quick rinsing in the lazy river at Camille Wright.

Then again, perhaps The Gary speaks facetiously in commending the city. Rather than be troubled at the pronouncements, we'll just leave him be, out there in the fringe, scouting fresh new greenfields to pave, because none of it changes an ever-escalating pattern of ugliness.

There is weird complicity, and things are getting strange again. Benedetti's niece? She's the very least of it.

“What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American G.I. in World War II France.”

Given that it is Memorial Day weekend, I suspect Howard Zinn would approve. My view is that it does not detract from the historical record to treat it with honesty. Others will disagree. War is hell, and we shouldn't forget it.

The Dark Side of Liberation, by Jennifer Schuessler (New York Times)

The soldiers who landed in Normandy on D-Day were greeted as liberators, but by the time American G.I.’s were headed back home in late 1945, many French citizens viewed them in a very different light.

In the port city of Le Havre, the mayor was bombarded with letters from angry residents complaining about drunkenness, jeep accidents, sexual assault — “a regime of terror,” as one put it, “imposed by bandits in uniform.”

This isn’t the “greatest generation” as it has come to be depicted in popular histories. But in “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American G.I. in World War II France,” the historian Mary Louise Roberts draws on French archives, American military records, wartime propaganda and other sources to advance a provocative argument: The liberation of France was “sold” to soldiers not as a battle for freedom but as an erotic adventure among oversexed Frenchwomen, stirring up a “tsunami of male lust” that a battered and mistrustful population often saw as a second assault on its sovereignty and dignity.

"Local History Never Tasted So Good": Garden Party at the Culbertson on Sat., June 1.

Tricentennial Ale has been brewed and will be served at the Garden Party on June 1. For more, catch up on your reading:

Tricentennial Ale: The artwork, the recipe, the schedule and the future.

Tricentennial Ale: The label.

Transparency? That's a fine idea. Found any yet?

Hmm.

It's Dan Coffey's council, and he and Diane Benedetti have been on opposite sides of many issues given the current council's rubber-stamp configuration. Now Coffey's out in front of the pack with axe in hand as it pertains to the specific issue of Benedetti's niece and the NSP.

(Uh huh. Move along; nothing to see here. No politics in any of it)

What's even more curious is David Duggins' mention of transparency.

Most of us didn't know there was a Main Street corridor public meeting earlier in the week.

Most of us didn't know there was an Urban Enterprise Association program to award low-interest loans and equipment grants to small businesses, and yet these were awarded at the UEA's most recent meeting.

Most of us understand that megabuck aquatic center plans were a done deal before they were brought to three sparsely attended public meetings, which in all likelihood were sparsely attended because the plans were a done deal.

I like Dave, and transparency is a wonderful thing, indeed. However, shall we say gently and yet firmly that transparency equally applied is even better? If it's right, then it needs to be right all of the time, wouldn't you say?

New Albany councilwoman subject of conflict-of-interest review; Diane Benedetti’s niece was in process of purchasing NSP home, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — A potential conflict of interest regarding the Midtown Neighborhood Stabilization Project and involving New Albany City Councilwoman Diane McCartin-Benedetti will be the topic of a special meeting Tuesday morning.

According to sources, the conflict-of-interest claim relates to Benedetti’s niece attempting to purchase one of the NSP houses. David Duggins, director of economic development and redevelopment for the city, confirmed Thursday the sale has been frozen pending review.

The New Albany Redevelopment Commission — which has been the lead city agency for the $6.7 million federal program — will weigh the matter the Tuesday meeting.

“The NSP project is too important and has done so much good for the neighborhoods that have been positively affected by it, that we just want to ensure that the perception of the project is as transparent as possible,” Duggins said.

R.I.P. Ed Ehalt.

In addition to being kinfolk of my late father's, Ed Ehalt was the "driving" force behind one of the most entertaining episodes in the history of Georgetown, a place where very little generally occurs.

Driving is to be taken literally, because in late winter of 1971, when Floyd Central's famed Superhicks advanced to the state finals in basketball, Ed drove his tractor all the way to Indianapolis in support of the cause. We was adored for it by the faithful fan base. Do any tractors remain in today's FC's 10-star exurban school district?

A Purple Heart vet of WWII, Ed was a garrulous, crusty, friendly, bow-legged lifelong horse lover, and at my father's wake back in 2001, his reminisces of their adolescent misadventures were the highlight of the gathering.

He'll be missed.

(photo credit)

ON THE AVENUES: “The Drinker” (A Book Review).

ON THE AVENUES: “The Drinker” (A Book Review).

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

A respectable 40-year-old businessman returns home from a normal workday to discover the maid has neglected to replace the floor mat by the front door. Annoyed at the omission, he tracks mud into the entryway, is mildly chided by his wife and becomes uncharacteristically angered.

A short time later, he suddenly recalls the existence of a long-forgotten, stale and vinegary bottle of red wine stashed in the cellar. Although a virtual teetotaler, a glass of this rancid wine helps considerably to take the edge off his day, and he feels far better. The floor mat spat now forgotten, he gifts his wife with money to buy herself something special, and goes to bed.

Next thing we know, his permanent residence is an insane asylum.

---

For Americans of a certain age, to read Hans Fallada’s novel The Drinker is to immediately recall the Simpsons episode wherein a flashback depicts Barney’s very first drink of beer, as offered to him by Homer. With one swallow, the well-groomed and sober young preppie morphs immediately into a swollen, drunken slob, forever destined for dissolution, and hilariously so.

A similar downward trajectory awaits Fallada’s main character, Herr Sommer – and there is very little humorous about an amazingly detailed and poetically rendered descent into lunacy. However, the story of The Drinker doesn’t end with a gripping, frightening novel, because the circumstances surrounding Fallada’s work of fiction hardly were imaginary at the time of writing.

Hans Fallada’s real name was Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen. He was born in Greifswald, Germany in 1893, and died in Berlin in 1947. In 1944, with World War II still raging throughout the continent, Fallada managed to write The Drinker in two weeks flat while incarcerated … in an insane asylum. It would have been an incredible feat anytime and anywhere, much less one undertaken secretively in an institution run by the Nazis, who obviously were unbound by the inhibitions of Hippocratic oaths.

In fact, Fallada’s entire life was not easy. An severe injury to his head during adolescence seemed to have changed him, and it may have directly led to lifelong mental health issues, suicide attempts and drug addiction, and yet, in that strange way sometimes characterizing an artist’s process of creation, Fallada became an exceptionally gifted writer prone to frenetic periods of work activity followed by elongated spirals into madness.

During the 1920s, Fallada married and enjoyed an extended period of domestic harmony and commercial success, including a worldwide readership for his novel, Little Man, What Now? But a collision course with Hitler’s totalitarian regime was inevitable owing to its inclination to channel all manifestations of art into approved support for the regime.

The storm clouds gathered, and yet Fallada chose to remain in Germany and not seek exile, spending the war years walking a tightrope -- neither an overt collaborator, nor seeking involvement with the resistance. From our vantage point these many years later, cohabitation with repression does not seem the ideal path for a writer with only a fragile grip on sanity, who already was peering into the abyss with clocklike frequency.

Fallada tried waiting it out. Perhaps the pressures hastened his demise, but maybe he was just doomed, anyway -- just like the rest of us.

---

Does Fallada’s wartime work as a writer represent acquiescence with the various Goebbels party lines, or was he endeavoring to write between them? The debate persists to this day. Was The Drinker allegorical, suggesting the common man’s struggle to cope with oppression? Or, was it an autobiographical work so meticulously researched from personal experience that larger themes aren’t really necessary?

Of course, it’s up to the reader.

Getting through The Drinker is like watching a cat torture a mouse before killing it. As the pages turn, Herr Sommer’s layers of dysfunction are unsparingly peeled away by the first-person narrative, and the deep-seated rot exposed. It becomes clear that none of the character’s many difficulties originate with that first drink of wine; rather, the alcohol merely delineates them.

Sommer already has started losing grip of his business, and growing apart from his wife, whom he resents for being efficient when he is anything but. The lies and self-deceptions merely require readily available fuel to combust into elephantine self-destructive proportions, and bottles of schnapps and cognac consumed with the speed that most of us reserve for ice water after a hot afternoon in the garden couldn’t be better for ignition.

When describing the weeks-long binge embarked upon by Sommer, Fallada’s prose is hazy and replete with confusion, self-loathing and false bravado, but when he lands in jail and begins drying out, matters become quite clinical. Eventually transferred to the asylum to receive the “help” he quite clearly needs, the inmate offers a portrait of daily life there that is detached, detailed and thoroughly horrendous.

By novel’s end, has anyone been saved?

It’s unlikely. There are no Hollywood happy endings to The Drinker, a novel that I recommend unreservedly, although not without certain caveats: If you’ve ever wondered whether your most recent drink was one too many, owing not to ordinary intoxication but to extraordinary curiosity as to whether there might come a point when the altered state persists even after the alcohol’s all gone … well, Fallada’s tale will not be an easy read for you.

It wasn’t easy for me. So, is it Happy Hour yet?

What's right for Main Street is right for all the streets. Right?

There was a breakfast meeting of the Downtown Business Owners group yesterday, and before making any further comments, thanks to Sweet Stuff for providing the doughnuts.

My waistline disagrees. Foolish waistline.

The prime topic for discussion at the gathering was to have been the city's future plans to implement two-way, complete streets downtown.

Unfortunately, no one from the city was able to attend.

However, Rep. Ed Clere was there, and he was able to brief us about Monday's public meeting on the Main Street corridor work. It's a meeting that few of us knew was occurring, but metaphorically critical nonetheless; as Ed noted, if the city is saying that Main Street needs to be completed, then there really isn't any way to simultaneously suggest that other city streets do not need to be completed.

Thanks to Ed for making this point and several others of extreme relevance to the immediate future of the street grid. Granted, I often publicly disagree with him. But fair play compels me to publicly agree, too, and this is one of those times. I believe that if, like me, you favor a modern, rational, complete street grid for New Albany, one in which all users are created equal, where traffic is calmed and both neighborhoods and businesses prosper as a result, just like they have in other cities where progressive thinking is more common, then Ed Clere is an ally to the cause. I thank him for it.

I also believe City Hall when it says that it favors complete streets.

My trust is absolute.

Now, all we need is verification, the sooner the better.

The Main Street project is a beginning -- but only a beginning. If it is undertaken without a system-wide plan of action, it might well become a vacuum, in which the usual declarations of victory are announced, and tired excuses like "but Main Street is different than other streets" and "but we don't have any more money" are trotted out to justify the dragging of feet.

Verification.

Just a bit of it, please.

Let's reason together for a change ... all of us.

"Can you have revitalization, reinvestment, renewal without some level of gentrification?"

Shared streets, shared neighborhoods. Food for thought.

Moving On From Gentrification to 'Shared Neighborhoods', by Brent Toderian (HuffPost blog)

As the renaissance of cities and urban areas in North America continues, more and more neighborhoods are struggling with the challenges of change. Although the market's rediscovery of inner-city, walkable, mixed-use communities is an excellent thing in many ways, the word "gentrification" inevitably comes up in almost every discussion. But one person's gentrification is another person's revitalization, so the debate is always complex and heated.

Can you have revitalization, reinvestment, renewal without some level of gentrification? Probably not, as any perceived improvement in the eyes of the marketplace changes the economics. I do though, continue to believe that in planning for community change, there are reasonable levels of gentrification, that gentrification can be strategically managed, and that we can have "revitalization without displacement." In fact, this phrase has been the vision for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) for years.

Yes, magic helmet: The greatest cartoon ever, for Richard Wagner's 200th.

With Bugs in drag, no less. 

When's the Harvest Homecoming parade, anyway?

NBA? It's a state asset, too.

I really hope the Dalai Lama told (okay, counseled) the trembling Greg Fischer to get his shit together.

An NBA team in Louisville WOULD be a regional asset precisely because it WOULD NOT be affiliated with the University of Louisville.

NBA not DOA: Kentucky econ-dev czar Larry Hayes says NBA team would be ‘a state asset’, by Terry Boyd (Insider Louisville)

 ... Translated: The market study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that there is insufficient corporate density to support NBA suites at KFC Yum! Center didn’t calculate regional interests from Lexington, Northern Kentucky and other areas.

Which is exactly the position of NBA2Louisville organizers.

Tierney on the advent of NA's summer concert series.

The free-lancer Tierney does a pretty good job with this one. Hopefully soon he'll be able to ask Forecastle's organizers if the fest plans to pair local beer with its local music lineup at the WFPK Port Stage. I mean, if it's all good to market one, then why not both? 

What was that? Pay to ... what?

Meanwhile, here is yesterday's press release: "Full June Lineup for Bicentennial Park Summer Concert Series Announced."

New Albany’s Bicentennial Park summer music series debuts June 7, by Michael Tierney (Insider Louisville)

Everyone is abuzz lately about New Albany; about how the river town has revived while retaining its small town feel, and about local heroes Houndmouth’s rise to stardom.

This week, city officials announced plans for a Friday night summer concert series at its new Bicentennial Park.

Mayor Jeff M. Gahan has teamed up with Louisville-based Production Simple and the park to host a free monthly concert starting Fri., June 7.

The concert series is aimed at “after-work” relief and family oriented with music appropriate for all ages. Being that the concerts will be on Friday is further motivation for New Albanians to ease their worries with tunes within a community event – something very similar to Louisville and WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday.

Aquatics: More on less.

First, a reposting of the $3.5 million aquatics center site plan from Marion, Ohio, shared here recently. One of the most noteworthy features isn't in the image but in the branded text: the architectural firm who helped make the low cost happen, Brandstetter Carroll Inc, has a Louisville office. It might be worth a phone call before handing the full set of keys to The Estopinal Group.

Second, it's also worth noting that not every community manages to build an aquatic center similar to New Albany's proposal for as little as $3.5 million. Some spend more, as shared below.

Joplin, MO

The Schifferdecker Family Aquatic Center in Joplin replaces an aging pool much like in New Albany. It maintains most of the features in New Albany's plan but also includes a full size 50 meter pool as some residents here have requested. It will be open within the next couple weeks.  
Total Cost: $5.3 million


Leitchfield, KY

The Leitchfield Aquatic Center plan is very similar to New Albany's in that it lacks a full 50 meter pool and focuses a bit more on the splashy elements. It's being placed on a previously undeveloped site so all supporting infrastructure like entrances, parking lots, and buildings will have to be built from scratch. New Albany's plan includes the use of some preexisting Camille Wright infrastructure, explained as a money saver. Leitchfield sold $4.9 million in bonds a few weeks ago to cover construction costs. $400,000 was added to the overall budget to cover a slightly higher than projected interest rate and to lower annual payments by $10,000 per year. Officials expect the center to open in 2014.  
Total cost: $5.3 million

Lacking a full size pool and reusing some preexisting infrastructure, New Albany's non-bid, Estopinal aquatics plan has been approved for a total cost of up to $9 million.

Downtown Business Owners at BSB on Wednesday morn at 8 bells.

The next Downtown Business Owners (formerly Merchant Mixer) meeting is Wednesday, May 22, at 8:00 a.m. at Bank Street Brewhouse. I'll have coffee and sweets on hand.

As determined last time out, the DBO's mission "is to be a coalition of downtown business owners to share information by communicating the opportunities and concerns of our downtown businesses."

Among the items for discussion are parking and two-way streets.

What a novel idea, basing it on actual evidence, as opposed to blackmail.

Social drinkers/drivers with a lower blood alcohol count aren't the ones inflicting mayhem on the streets and roads. Never have been. Chronic violators are the problem, and a .05 BAC standard does nothing to bring them into compliance. Measures like this are thinly veiled prohibitionism in a nation that chronically undervalues public transportation because its libido fixates on the presumed "freedom" of the automobile.

Pfui.

Tighter Indiana drunken driving law seems unlikely (Associated Press)

INDIANAPOLIS — Some key Indiana legislators don’t expect the state to adopt a federal safety board’s recommendation that the threshold for drunken driving be cut nearly in half.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in its proposal last week that drunken-driving deaths could be reduced if states lowered the current 0.08 blood-alcohol level for driving to 0.05 percent ...

... “I think before we go running off and introducing law, because somebody suggested we should be blackmailed, let’s look at the data and see what’s most effective and with what do we get the most reduction in alcohol-related injuries,” (House transportation committee Chairman Ed) Soliday said. “Some of that may not need a law passed.”

There's a time and a place to die: My favorite band this week ...

 ... is Paramore, although I'm sure I'll change my mind by next week.

Thanks, and best future wishes to Kyle Ridout.

After just shy of 20 years at the helm, Kyle Ridout is retiring from his position as head of the Paul W. Ogle Cultural and Community Center at Indiana University Southeast. I worked with Kyle and his staff on several Bier Prost fundraisers to benefit the Ogle Center, and always enjoyed the experience.

Kyle circulated an e-mail informing friends and contacts of his impending departure, and I'd like to focus on just one section of it, which I believe provides insight into what goes into making such an endeavor work.

In the 18 years I have worked for the campus, I have valued the faith the community has placed in me. My charge these many years has been to serve both the campus and our community. I have tried to do that with a certain amount of humility, knowing that my success was always dependent on the interest and support of others.

"Full June Lineup for Bicentennial Park Summer Concert Series Announced."

I still favor Mix at Six, but it doesn't matter. Let's have a beer and listen to music in Rent Boy Park this summer. The eventual goal is to have NABC's Houndmouth (the beer) and Black & Blue Grass on tap for all 12 of the Friday night shows scheduled for June, July and August. 

---

PRESS RELEASE – Full June Lineup for Bicentennial Park Summer Concert Series Announced

May 20th, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Michael Hall

Mayor Jeff M. Gahan and the City of New Albany are pleased to announce the full June lineup for the Bicentennial Park Summer Concert Series. Each show will be held on Friday nights from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. throughout the summer in historic downtown New Albany’s Bicentennial Park, located at the corner of Spring Street and Pearl Street.

June 7th – Ranger (rangertunes.bandcamp.com) with Riverboys (riverboys.bandcamp.com)

Two up and coming hometown bands will kick off the series at its opening on June 7th. Ranger will bring their original indie folk rock to Bicentennial Park, coming off their recent outstanding performance opening for local sensation Houndmouth at Iroquois Amphitheater. Ranger will be supported by fellow Southern Indiana newcomers, Riverboys.

June 14th – Lucius (ilovelucius.com)

This five-piece group from Brooklyn, NY just recently played a wildly successful set at 2013’s SXSW music festival in Austin, TX, and is bringing their own brand of Indie Pop into the heart of downtown New Albany. Their music has been described as “catchy, distinctive indiepop tunes” by Rolling Stone magazine, and the New York Times’ Paul Krugman describes them as “something special, and their songs keep rattling around in my head.” This will be Lucius’s last tour date before they play in this year’s Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, TN.

June 21st – Ballroom Blitz (ballroomblitzdance.com)

The concept is simple: an all-star supergroup that can play anything, from the hottest Boston song to the most intricate Queen, with dance grooves stretching from the B-52s to Michael Jackson - and vocals as huge as the Bee Gees. Drawing on the richest musical era of the past century, The Blitz brings a staggering body of musical experience, creativity and energy into the moment - lighting the fire, bringing the magic back.

June 28th – Quiet Hollers (quiethollers.com)

Based in Louisville, KY, Quiet Hollers have found their niche following a paradigm shift in musical direction from Hardcore Punk to Roots and Americana. They have forged a brand of Roots music equally reminiscent of Springsteen and the Replacements as it is Townes Van Zandt or Uncle Tupelo, yet still with a sound all their own. Their talent with many instruments allows members to shift between vocals, guitar, bass, mandolin, violin, cello, accordion, banjo, harmonica, and other instruments seamlessly.

Water on the brains: Much less for far more will keep us swimming in it.

Since the serious prospect of a new municipal swimming pool or aquatic center was made public in New Albany, several people, though not elected officials or most media types, have issued numerous, relevant questions.

Roger did a fine job, for instance, of asking how or why an aquatics-based project fits with quality of life justifications, particularly when more pressing quality issues, some of which are much less expensive to address and more costly not to, stand mostly ignored.

Likewise, Sam Schad and his group asked why, with such a huge expenditure, we can't at least get increased utility from such a facility if we're going to build it anyway without the sort of considerations Roger suggests.

Somewhere in-between the two, I mused that whether the expenditure would be worth it or not would depend largely on what was ultimately and comprehensively delivered-- hardly a profound concept but one too readily dismissed by too many current decision makers. Given the vast amount of money then proposed and now doubly approved, I foolishly held out hope that council voices would rightfully point out that, for the price, we should be able to produce an aquatic center and a competitive lap pool and the reclamation of our two-way streets and perhaps some other potential initiatives.

Why did/do I think that? Because, apparently unlike some voluntarily voiceless council members, I bothered with a smidgeon of research into how comparable cities have handled comparable situations.

Marion, Ohio, is one such city. Its population of just under 37,000 is almost exactly the same as New Albany's. Marion, too, had an aging pool - a very common predicament nationwide - in a setting of roughly the same land space as Camille Wright: one that needed either substantial rehabilitation or replacement if the city decided to maintain a facility at all.

Conversation in Marion was somewhat similar to ours here as well.  Like New Albany, there were discussions of the overall usefulness of such a facility and whether or not it would cash flow. Totally unlike New Albany, there was even legitimate debate about proposed costs. Finally, Marion's city council online.com/uncategorized/2011/06/council-overrides-veto-of-aquatic-center/">overrode a cost driven mayoral veto to build an aquatic center, depicted below via text and images from online.com/">Marion Online and the aquatic center's Facebook page. It opened last summer, 2012, and has since online.com/news/2013/03/marion-aquatic-center-earns-state-award/">won a state award for recreation facilities.

"The new center will feature heated water, Lazy River, Floating Lilly Pads, Zero-depth entry, 25 foot Racing Slides, a 6 foot Family Slide, a Water Play set with a bucket that dumps 150 gallons of water, 25 meter 6 lane pool with a high dive and low dive and a separate baby pool."

 

It indeed appears to be a very nice facility that's been well received by the community. 

Here's the rub: That debate about cost that led to both a mayoral veto and a council override? It was a fight over whether to spend $2.4 million or $3.5 million. The council favored the 3.5 and won. 

All the above- much of it strikingly familiar - was built within the past couple of years for less than half of even the most conservative cost estimate provided by the administration and approved by the council for New Albany's impending center. Assuming we're not purposefully overspending for nefarious political purposes, New Albany could have something very similar and $4 - 5.5 million left over to address other quality of life needs without spending any more than what's already been approved.

Making that possible, though, requires a majority of council members who think beyond mayoral and Estopinal suggestions and consider such basic, comparative due diligence a part of their job. In terms of what our council has thus far publicly offered up relative to aquatic center merits, the one direct comparison offered here - easily gleaned from about 30 minutes of individual research - unfortunately represents more than our council members have collectively put forth over several months. 

The quantity and quality of discourse around numerous "park" projects has been so low and the prices so high that, if I didn't know some of the folks involved personally, I'd probably just assume they were receiving substantial kickbacks for such a dubious (lack of) effort. I don't believe that, but the lack of diligence has been egregious enough to make it a plausible explanation to fill an obvious void.

One would think (or at least I did) that the public embarrassment of a $750,000 downtown pocket park with less utility and flexibility than a $200,000 park could've offered and/or tens of thousands so casually given to a Bicentennial Commission who clearly told council members they had "no idea" how the money would be used before being granted funding should have been sufficient cause for a slightly more thoughtful approach in considering the aquatics expenditure. But, then, I already admitted to being foolishly optimistic.

If any of the council "yes" voters would like to explain exactly which portion of our proposed aquatic center justifies multiple, additional millions as compared to what we can plainly observe here, the floor is open. It's been open for months. Until any such rational, evidence-based explanation materializes, however, "rubber-stamp" criticisms will ring truer than usual for a group who, via the intelligence of its individual members, ought to know much better. 

As an overall experience, our current council group has in ways been even more frustrating than some of the lesser moments of the Kochert-led era that served as my introduction to New Albany politics. During that time, a distinct lack of intellectual capital coalesced with an abundance of insider bullying to render capacity so low as to substantially limit both expectations and actual potential. 

But that's not the case here. What we have now is an example of "won't" rather than "can't" in which acquiring council seats has somehow rendered usually talented people into an amorphous mass of counterproductive group decline. The sum is less than its parts. No one is consistently demonstrating their capacity for good questions, so we're settling for lousy, injudicious answers and losing badly.

So far, a bunch of really smart people have managed to haphazardly waste millions in public funding without so much as addressing some fundamental quality of life and prioritization issues. If such behavior continues unchecked by any number of council members quite capable of checking it, future councils and the city at large will have a much more difficult time responding to those issues as we try to dig ourselves out of holes already dug, some quite literally, at places like Bicentennial Park and the aquatics center. 

As a citizen and voter, I've always felt it important to extend at least some effort toward helping ensure that we elect as talented a group of leaders as possible. This council, however, with its inexplicable yet seemingly automatic brainpower off switch - apparently activated by the doors at city hall - is calling that premise into question. 

An unexamined "yes" is no better and sometimes worse than an ignorant "no" in that it actively reduces opportunities rather than just passively ignores them. In short, all this "no-brainer" malarkey when it comes to water features is costing us a lot of money that could easily be better spent but which we'll never get back. 

We've seen several frighteningly unthinking financial decisions from this council lately that, taken together, set quite a negative precedent that should be and, since no aquatics contracts have been let, can be immediately corrected before yet another boondoggle becomes a part of their permanent record.

The swashbuckler, the teenager and the revolutionary.

Back in the early 1980s when the Bob & Rog Show was a staple on the local tavern circuit, we both looked to the film star Errol Flynn with considerable reverence as a symbol of sustained dissipation. I've now managed to live three whole years longer than Flynn, who died at 50 of the accumulated effects of his debaucheries.

Any similarities begin and end with alcohol. Flynn's final flirtation was with a teenage girl, and his last movies were set in Cuba. One of them, Cuban Rebel Girls, has long been a source of fascination owing to its wretchedness, although perhaps enough time has passed to render it a cult classic.

Well past his prime, Errol Flynn agreed to star in the basement-budgeted Cuban Rebel Girls for two reasons: he was fascinated by Fidel Castro, and he needed a quick tax write-off. Flynn plays "himself," an American news correspondent on assignment in Havana. He joins a group of Castroites who undertake several guerilla raids; among the rebels is 17-year-old Beverly Aadland, actor Flynn's at-the-time girlfriend. Cuban Rebel Girls was hastily assembled in Cuba and New York by fly-by-night producer Barry Mahon. Sadly, it proved to be Errol Flynn's last film.

Actually, it turns out the proper descriptive word is not "last." It is "penultimate," but more about that in a moment. My attention was directed to these topics by yesterday's newspaper of record, in which Flynn and Aadland are reunited in a biopic of sorts.

The Swashbuckler and the Teenager; Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in ‘The Last of Robin Hood’, by John Anderson (NYT)

 ... “His early performances have a wonderful dash and bravura,” said Morris Dickstein, film critic, professor and author of “Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression.” “But like Barrymore, he eventually disappeared into his own caricature and made his ‘Wicked, Wicked Ways’ his calling card.” He added, “It would have been a sad case, except that he seems to have had a good time of it.”

Seems there was a time for another project, too: Cuban Story, a documentary rediscovered after decades on the shelf, and finally released in 2012. While it remains posted at YouTube, you can watch the complete documentary: Cuban Story.

Film star with a cause, by John Paul Rathbone (Financial Times)

A recently rediscovered film about Fidel Castro is a rare chronicle of a defining moment in world history as well as Errol Flynn’s near-redemption.

It gives a whole new meaning to "In like Flynn," which upon closer examination sounds like a great name for a commemorative beer. After all, I know someone who owns a brewery.

On RiverRoots and NABC's wonderful fan base at Madison's annual fest.

The RiverRoots Music and Folk Arts Festival was far less stressful this year. Our friends from the organizing committee couldn't quite manage to displace AB-InBev, but the swill dispensing tent was moved far away, further up the hill, and the absence of mass-market beer in the vicinity of the craft tent had a salutary effect on all of us.

There were two clear choices: Craft and crap. I haven't seen the final numbers, but it's a fair guess that craft dominated sales.

NABC brought 14 kegs and brought back 11 empties, including four cashed Hoptimus kegs. It represents about the same amount of beer vended last year, in spite of an additional brewery on the scene (five of us this year), and the threat of rain throughout the day on Saturday.

RiverRoots is a fine idea. Each year, the working arrangement reflects differing points of view among members of the governing committee, and for 2013, we participated under a scheme radically different from the first seven years. It worked out about the same in the end, because the same friends and fans we've seen from the start know to find NABC's table.

We appreciate it very much, and we hope the tradition continues in 2014.

BSB's Chef Matt Weirich is the Bacon King.

Chef Matt Weirich is the Bacon King, as crowned Saturday night at the Louisville Visual Art Association's Bacon Ball at Oxmoor Farm.

Matt's won the People's Choice award with a morell mushroom macaron with bacon jam. Congratulations to Matt and his helpers for bringing the win home to the Right Bank.

(bottom photo courtesy of KG)

CM Cappuccino shops for aquatically appropriate locker room signage.

Of planets and employers

Quality of life assumptions

On lottery wins, shimmering new parklands and the persistence of a sow's ear.

Admittedly, the change is fascinating to me.

In a world fairly reeking of tea party crashers and Norquistian finger-waggers, New Albany somehow has succeeded in ridding itself of self-identified citizens' anti-tax protesters. They simply have disappeared, and the new atmosphere is strange, to say the least.

Gads. Am I feeling nostalgia for Citizens Faux Accountability?

At Thursday's council meeting, every person in the room with the possible exceptions of council persons Zurschmiede and Benedetti accepted that bonding somewhere in the vicinity of $19 million for two new parks and slight modifications to a third were (as CM Blair has oft said) "no-brainers."

Just one example: Standing at the same lectern where numerous obstructionists over the years have vowed to set themselves alight over proposals to purchase a few pencils and (maybe) a box of paper clips, a man held that these three mega-bond parks projects are going to be built sub-standard, and so we might as well spend a bit more to elevate them to spec: "While the check book's open," he said, they should be finished correctly.

Everyone blithely nodded, including the three members of the new city parks board present at the meeting, all of whom agreed that the city's most important mission is to restore pride in parks, because pride in parks represents hope, and one can't place a price tag on hope, even if so many other aspects of the city remain unfinished and in need of similar investments if there's ever to be hope outside of a lazy river or soccer pitch.

It is disorienting, to say the least. I cannot recall a time in the past ten years, perhaps apart from sewer upgrades, when the expenditure of so much money was being proposed for such narrowly targeted returns.

Are public parks a quality of life issue? Of course. Are they the only quality of life issue? Of course not. When was it decided via any semblance of public input that pools are the ONLY quality of life issue worth spending $19 million to build?

Never.

To repeat: Never.

That's why this $19 million bond is so very obscene. Money's suddenly no object, the council's behaving like lotto winners, and while the mayor argues that any reinvigoration of the city necessarily must begin with park designs, the streets still run one way ... the Reisz and Coyle properties remain empty ... the Riverfront Amphitheater rots on a bread and water ration ... vast stretches of housing as yet are slumlord infested and blighted ... the Greenway's unfinished ... two bicycle paths running the same direction on Spring Street make no more sense now than when Carl handbuilt them ... well, how much further would you like for me to go on? If city hall has an integrated plan to address these, can we please just get a glimpse?

The dust will settle, and we'll have this nice Mayberry-style water park. The old folks will beam, and the young folks ... well, they'll leave.

Just like they always have.

Tribune coverage of Thursday's meeting

C-J coverage of the same

In which the woman decries the political decapitation of CM Bud Light.

We floated a couple of kegs last night at RiverRoots, which is par for a Friday night at the fest in Madison. Lots of folks will be drinking craft beer there today, which will come as a disappointment to the woman who called me out yesterday for encouraging young people to "chug" beers, get drunk, and sometimes die in hospital emergency rooms. She'd seen it happen.

I differed; she said no, "I read it in your newspaper column."

The woman proceeded to recall the time I "bragged" about bicycling while drunk. She had me there. Yes, I conceded, this may be true ... but you know, I'm really VERY good at it for all the practice I've had.

She concluded by scoffing: I never actually "ran" for office so much as unfairly "ruined" poor ol' Steve Price, who was way better than that Phipps guy. seems it was a disgrace the way we did in L'il Stevie.

Well, well. It isn't every day that there's a chance to converse pleasantly with the chief of my fan club, even if she wasn't letting me call her "ma'am" -- no, not one little bit.

Does this mean she'll not support my indie State Senate run versus Groomsberger in 2014? Because the more I think about it, the more fun that would be.

Nash on "walking just a little bit every day."

With Thursday's council approval of multi-million dollar expenditures for new city parks and an aquatic center, it's no longer a case of "rather than."

It's about "in addition to," and it needs to begin happening now.

In addition to monies spent on delineated bricks 'n' mortar 'n' grassy 'n' waterborne park facilities, the city of New Albany must begin now improve various manifestations indices of walkability, particularly in the downtown urban core. We can facilitate this most efficiently through the rationalizing and modernization of the street grid, rendering it useful for all of the city's residents, not only those who happen to be piloting automobiles at any particular moment.

There are other benefits to converting one-way streets, calming streets and rightsizing streets, but anything done to enhance overall walkability has a multiplier effect, touching numerous aspects of revitalization.

It also makes for a healthier city, as Matt Nash noted in his Friday column. He must be serious about exercise, because he didn't drink beer with the rest of us before the last council meeting.

Walking just a little bit every day will go a long way to improving your overall health and nearly everyone can do it. Walking is an exercise that you don’t need any special equipment to accomplish many of your goals. Walking is enjoyable and so simple that you can stick with it easily which is the downfall of many exercise programs.

This weekend: RiverRoots Music & Folk Arts Fest (with craft beer) in Madison, Indiana.

RiverRoots Music & Folk Arts Fest returns to Madison on Friday and Saturday (May 17 and 18). 

NABC's lineup at the craft beer tent is Black & Blue Grass, Hoosier Daddy ... and Hoptimus (which should have been at Woodstock when the sun rose on the Who's set, but I digress).

Upland, Sun King, Great Crescent and Power House also will have beer at the fest. This is a rare pairing of music and craft beer (and food, of course), held in a cool town. Come on up.

The Potable Curmudgeon: One lump or two?

At LouisvilleBeer.com, I find it easier than Fonzie to a-a-a-apologize. It's the curious case of Houndmouth at Houndmouth, and you can read the whole story at the beer site.

The Potable Curmudgeon: One lump or two?

As the venerated journalist David Brinkley once put it, “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

Well, that suits me.

I’m highly opinionated, and much of the verbiage comes barreling out of my subconscious via the written word. For me, writing is a compulsion of sorts, and it comes with a sincere hope that my words will be read.

What I write, I always sign. Anonymity is tantamount to cowardice. I win some and I lose some, and there also is an inescapable element of living and dying by the rhetorical sword, but at least it’s always me.

Give and take in the debate is common, but every now and then, there’ll be a complaint to the effect that someone, somewhere, has taken offense at my words.

I’m delighted with feedback, since it means someone actually was reading, and so I’m quite willing to discuss particulars, as long as we’re reasonably clear about parameters: All I ask is that the wrong words not be placed in my mouth, because I’m wholly capable of uttering foolishness without anyone else’s help.

Well, he deserves it.

Hugo smells more than catnip. There's adaptive reuse in the air, and all we need is a crowbar.

ON THE AVENUES: Pair with free range frog legs.

ON THE AVENUES: Pair with free range frog legs.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Many times while walking home from downtown New Albany, where Doug and Carl started all those restaurants, I swing down 10th Street from Market back over to Spring.

The corner of 10th and Market is adjacent to the city’s attractive war memorial traffic divider. Mansion Row is only a block away to the south. After 10th crosses Spring northward, the neighborhood becomes more transitional – near where Doug and Carl saved all those houses.

Standing there on the side of 10th, between market and Spring, is a nondescript yet dignified 19th-century red brick commercial building, two stories tall, with a sloping roof and a “fermentational” story to tell.

This building probably is the last tangible remnant of New Albany’s brewing past, having once housed the brewery owned by the Buchheit family. In its prime, there was a whole corner compound of sorts, with two companion structures and outbuildings. A tavern and dance hall were located just yards away.

I’ll leave the inevitability of the brothel to the fevered imaginations of the Daughters of the American Revolution, although the DAR likely insists that old-timers were without houses of ill repute. Color me skeptical; somewhere, there’s an antique little black book waiting to be audited.

The Buchheit brewing heyday was 125 years ago, give or take a decade. In more recent years the place where the beer used to be brewed suffered the supreme indignity of being home to a fundamentalist church of the sort that would lobby for a return to Prohibition, and as a result, should be viciously suppressed, or at least prevented from joining One Southern Indiana.

I suppose it’s like the Ohio Valley weather: If you don’t appreciate today’s zoning usage, just wait a century or two and surely it will change. Happily, the church isn’t there any longer, which is a victory for beer-drinking heretics like yours truly.

---

Although the study of history is important to me, I’ve never been much for breweriana, with all its signs, labels and steins, and it isn’t my habit to pore over microfilm at the public library in search of obscure factoids. History is about telling good stories -- mostly factually true, but with an undercurrent of creativity allowed if it advances the narrative.

Consequently, it was quite interesting a few years back when a good friend from my neighborhood received permission from the owner of the adjacent house, itself erected atop Buchheit brewery building foundations, to explore the former lagering cellars. They still reach far into the earth beneath the brewery site, and my pal’s descriptions of them were beer for thought, indeed.

Perhaps stemming from my career paradigm shift, from brewpub operator to production brewery owner, it has become compelling for me to idly speculate about the daily routines and business strategies of such a brewery as Buchheit’s, in a town like New Albany, at some indeterminate time between the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century.

We know that these smaller breweries often operated as extensions of the owning family, which tended to reside on or near the business site, with bunkhouse rooms for their workers and seats at a communal dining table.

Ice would be cut and packed into the cellars in wintertime to keep them cooler during warm weather. Just about everyone involved was German, and the beer was brewed according to the Old World stylebook with modifications as necessitated by available ingredients and prevailing conditions. The beer was kegged in wooden barrels, and also sometimes bottled – either by the brewer, or by free-standing “contract” bottling firms.

Apart from added elbow grease and equine deliveries, the actual work performed at a New Albany brewery of old wouldn’t have been substantively different from the schedule of ours in 2013, but in terms of selling the finished product, it’s a good guess that a brewery in New Albanian times of yore functioned more like a purveyor of foodstuffs, as with a bakery, rather than in the manner of today’s brewpub or production brewery.

I believe this for no other legible reason than the likelihood of recently arrived Germans regarding their beer as a daily source of nourishment, in addition to its more obvious value as an intoxicant. This is the way the Old World worked, and a morning soup using leftover stale beer as stock was still a rural custom in parts of Germany until the mid-1900s. It took Prohibition, rising standards of living and the passing of time to gradually breed the perception of “beer as food” out of the American gene pool.

I find much to admire in this simplicity of approach, even though certain stressful constants span the decades: Good and bad business cycles, employees juggling personal lives and work hours, raw material costs and outages, and the time-honored annoyance of trying to convince a reluctant banker to help out when the cash flow is tight.

These days, we’re in the entertainment business just as much as anything, and probably more, as we are involved with both beer-making and cooking meals. Prior to the advent of saturation connectivity and hyper-consumerism, seemingly there could exist a sufficient local or even regional market for a product like beer, absent the imperative to juggle multiple on-line social media portals, satisfy the jaded and shortened attention span of the typical visitor, and decide whether one’s brew team should read Beer Advocate’s reviews or not, lest they learn of their beers being deemed scandalously over-rated.

To me, the absence of modern medicine, e-mail and civil rights guarantees usually suffices to discourage time travel to the age of the Robber Barons. However, I’ve been known to second-guess myself.

I wonder how Buchheit’s beer tasted? Depending on the mayoral administration, hopefully the beer was good enough to walk another couple blocks and share a pail with Jouett Meekin, retired baseball star.

Quality of life as an aquatic assumption? City council hones rubber stamp.

Shouldn't Dan Coffey be maddeningly concerned that Mars, Jupiter or other gender indeterminate androids might try to use the aquatic center?

Don't swimming pools have rights, too?

Meanwhile, if excessive expenditure is inevitable, we might as well lie back and enjoy it. From the very start of this headlong rush to spend millions on recreation, my criticism has been simpler than that of my friend Sam Schad (below).

Can anyone explain precisely why an aquatics center is a "no brainer" insofar as "quality of life" issues are concerned? 

Councilman Blair, you go first. Take your time -- well, at least until 7:30 p.m.

This assumption has been voiced dozens of times, as though the frequency and volume of the phrase's repetition alone suffices as a buttressing rationale. Sorry, but it doesn't.

If quality of life issues are paramount, what was the process leading to an aquatic center ranking first on the list?

Might other strategic expenditures of millions across the city as a whole contribute to overall quality of life as much or more so than one solitary, isolated facility?

Why this project and not others?

Hell, it's okay. I'm accustomed to my questions being unanswered. That's why I drink to excess even as the Tricentennial of 2113 looms just over that horizon. It should be an entertaining gathering this evening; in addition to the rubber stamping of aquatics, there'll be a bicentennial commission awdit resolution, complete with consummate CeeSaw caterwauling.

If I'm lucky, I won't remember any of it.

New Albany swimming pool plan is drawing criticism; Advocates want 50-meter lap option and year-round training, by Grace Schneider (C-J)

As New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan and his administration edge closer to building a new aquatic center, criticism is ramping up from competitive swimming advocates who insist that the plans lack a crucial element — a 50-meter lap pool.

They also want a facility that can be covered to allow for year-round training, swim lessons and competitive team practices.

On Thursday night, the City Council is expected to review and vote on revised plans for the proposed $8 million to $9 million aquatic center, which the city intends to build on the former Camille Wright pool property in the 200 block of West Daisy Lane.

Several critics, led by New Albany lawyer Sam Schad, are expected to attend the meeting to push their point. Schad wrote a letter Monday asking Gahan to delay asking for a council vote, asserting that the city should build a pool that allows for year-round access for a broad cross section of the community.

Schad provided the names of more than 300 residents from New Albany, Floyd County and nearby communities who agree with his assertion that the city’s design is flawed.

Ah, but where do those petition signers actually live?

New Albany council to vote on aquatic center plans Thursday; Splash park added to park plan at Hoosier Panel site, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

 ... Beyond the debate over whether a bond should have been approved to fund the projects, there have been other concerns raised by officials and members of the community about the projects.

New Albany resident Sam Schad submitted a letter to Mayor Jeff Gahan and local media outlets protesting the aquatic center.

It included a petition with 302 signatures from people Schad said desired a more “robust” facility that would provide full-year access to a 50-meter pool.

“Given the design resources at our disposal, it seems senseless that no one is asking one simple question: How can we build a facility that could be used by the broadest spectrum of our community all year long,” Schad wrote in the letter.

Many of the names on the petition were credited to locations outside of New Albany, and some were from outside of Floyd County.

Freiberger - Grooms rematch. Maybe I'll run as an independent.

The first bout was in 2010, won by Grooms to the tune of 51% - 48%.

Freiberger to run for State Senate 46 seat; Floyd commissioner likely will face incumbent Ron Grooms again (News and Tribune)

FLOYD COUNTY — Democrat Chuck Freiberger, who is in his fourth term as a Floyd County commissioner, has announced plans to run for the State Senate 46 seat in 2014. The seat is held by Republican Ron Grooms, who Tuesday announced his re-election campaign.

Louisville Loves Mountains, with local craft beer: Friday, May 17.

NABC is teaming with our friends at Against the Grain and BBC to provide the beer concession for Louisville Loves Mountains on Friday, May 17. We'll have on hand kegs of Houndmouth Ale and Hoosier Daddy -- it's your last chance until October to drink HD (which also will be on tap at RiverRoots this weekend).

This has become one of the NABC brew crew's favorite annual events, because very rarely is there so direct a visceral connection between social activism and what actually matters about craft beer. Both urge us to act locally even as we think globally.

See the official press release at NABC's web site.

Tricentennial Ale: The label.

Yesterday: Tricentennial Ale: The artwork, the recipe, the schedule and the future.

On or around June 3, a limited run of 300 hand-numbered 22oz “bomber” bottles will go on sale at both NABC locations in New Albany, and at Keg Liquors.

Can you say “renegade collector’s edition”?

The label art by NABC’s graphics authority-in-residence Tony Beard depicts the city of New Albany in 2113, when our city’s future generations will have yet another chance to get it right, assuming they can hack a pathway through the inevitable phalanx of wagons circled by the descendants of the usual suspects even in that far-off era to come.

School board's forest and trees -- assuming the latter are not felled for additional parking.

Ostensibly, the point in Jerod Clapp's article has something to do with the band director, except that the larger notations of interest are hidden in the folds of the fabric.

First, there's school board member Mark Boone, who really doesn't want to talk about these things aloud before the nagging public, when smoky back rooms provide more privacy.

Mark Boone, board member, said he didn’t understand why Gardenour had asked the same questions she had answered via email earlier this week. She maintained she had a right to ask those questions publicly.

“It’s almost to the point where we do this every month to embarrass someone,” Boone said.

Gardenour said she thought too many issues were discussed amongst the board via the Internet and would like to see more of those discussions happen publicly.

Boone said it made more sense to do one or the other, rather than go over the same details as a courtesy.

Gardenour said she disagreed and wanted the most up-to-date information possible public.

“We’re going to make a game show of meetings going forward guys, because I can do this, too,” Boone said. “Go ahead.”

However, if a game show were the real objective, a better one would involve spinning a wheel of condemnation to see which house the board votes to demolish next. Does Boone (or, for that matter, any other school board member) ever attend meetings of any downtown group charged with bettering neighborhoods -- or is the planning better done on high, in back, and on the down low?

The board unanimously passed the purchase of 1813 Shelby St. for $31,500. The district has bought several properties in that area to help expand parking for New Albany High School.

Expand parking, destroy the neighborhood for the sake of cars. I hope the kids are paying attention.

Support swells for New Albany band director: Decision on employment not yet before NA-FC board (N and T)

BTW, the new Hanson Ads are really something, aren't they? As soon as you clock through to a story, another window opens with no back spacing, and your original portal becomes an ad, also with no back spacing. Publisher of the millennium? Whatever.

Houndmouth IN Europe, ON Conan.

There was no "apparently" to it, because Houndmouth assuredly "killed it" at the Iroquois Amphitheater in April. I ran into the band members downtown yesterday, and noticed someone was missing a beard. Soon the paparazzi will be taking note of all such wardrobe changes, eh?

---

Set your TiVo now: Houndmouth to play ‘Conan’ in June

By MELISSA CHIPMAN | Published: MAY 13, 2013

Houndmouth recording at Sun Studios in Memphis (from their website)

You might want to share your favorite jet lag remedy with New Albany band Houndmouth.

They leave this week for a European tour that bounces from the UK to France and back again, then to Belgium, then France again, then back to the UK on June 3.

June 4 is their record release day for “From the Hills Below the City.”

But likely they’ll be spending most of that day on a plane from London to lovely Burbank, California.

Because on June 5, the band appears on Conan. The show airs at 11 p.m. on TBS.

Tricentennial Ale: The artwork, the recipe, the schedule and the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tony Beard ... NABC's graphics wunderkind in residence.

Here is the 60-word capsule for the Tricentennial label:

New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Way back in 2013, as the city celebrated its 200th birthday with the usual backward-looking festivities, NABC elected to focus on the Tricentennial year of 2113, knowing that future New Albanians will echo the refrain heard across three centuries of civic history: What on earth were they thinking?

As formulated by David Pierce, the beer is being brewed to these specs:

Malt: Rahr Pale Malt, Castle Aromatic Malt, Weyermann Rauchmalt, Sorghum from Mast and Lykins Sorghum Farms

Hops: US Goldings

Yeast: SWV House Ale

OG: 17 degree Plato
ABV: 7.5%
IBUs: 33

Previously I've provided the release schedule for Tricentennial Ale. You can taste the beer on June 1 at the Culbertson Mansion's garden gala, and a very limited, hand-numbered bomber bottle run will follow in early June. Tricentennial will appear at intervals for the remainder of 2013.

I'll see your bicentennial, and raise you a Tricentennial. Whatcha got?

Tricentennially speaking, the Culbertson Mansion is "the jewel of New Albany."

As we await the awdit resolution, here's a brand new Bicentennial anthem.

Strange days have found us

Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing
Or find a new town

Yeah!

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin
And you know this is it

Yeah!

Strange days have found us
And through their strange hours
We linger alone
Bodies confused
Memories misused
As we run from the day
To a strange night of stone

For more strange days, notice who's taking credit for the downtown dining renaissance.

How will CeeSaw vote on the awdit resolution ... or will be learn the meaning of recusal?

Another example of Greg Fischer's non-existent "leadership."

Is there a civil administration in Louisville, or does the university run the city?

I can't recall a Louisville mayor so prone to charging feebly in multiple directions,  perpetually sounding those silly fox hunting bugles, all at once, without every really doing anything at all apart from prattling about the leadership he refuses to exercise.

Whether you are in favor of the NBA, against it, or have no opinion, Fischer's performance to date has been a prevaricating debacle. M*A*S*H's Frank Burns has met WKRP's Arthur Carlson, and they're conferring at a barracks with F Troop. A better example is the mayor's namesake Freddy Fischer from the British television series Pie in the Sky, but I realize this is an obscure example.

Look, just pick something and do it. Anything will suffice. Really.

Mayor Greg Fischer: ‘Who me? I NEVER pushed the NBA in Louisville’, by Terry Boyd (Insider Louisville)

The guy who’s been out front in the effort to bring the NBA to Louisville took himself out of the game, today.

No, not attorney J. Bruce Miller.

Miller is still going full speed ahead, with several prospective National Basketball Association team investors.

I’m talking about Louisville Metro Mayor Greg Fischer, who walked back – no, ran – from his previous support after Greater Louisville Inc. released the NBA market assessment it commissioned from PriceWaterhouseCoopers.