Why does Team Gahan always pee on pedestrians?

It began in September, 2015, with this observation: We cannot know if the push-button crosswalk buttons work when so many of them are broken.

Jeff Speck, who once authored a walkability study for New Albany -- a document now being depleted, one precious page at a time, as toilet paper in Jeff Gahan's executive washroom -- is quoted here on the topic of push-button crosswalk signals: How Push-to-Walk reduces the quality of walkable neighborhoods.

It is almost always the cities with push-button crossings that need the most help ... push-buttons almost always mean that the automobile dominates, as they are typically installed in conjunction with a new signal timing in which crossing times are shorter and less frequent. Far from empowering walkers, the push button turns them into second-class citizens; pedestrians should never have to ask for a light.

And boy, does the auto dominate in New Albany.

In New Albany, push button crosswalk signals are not placebos. Walkers actually must push the "beg button" to receive a safe (often a facetious term) signal to cross. If the button malfunctions, there'll be no signal -- ever.

Not only do push buttons turn pedestrians into second-class citizens; broken push buttons surely deter the notion of a pleasant walk just as effectively as sidewalk parking, and other defaults wherein the sidewalk always is blocked first, not a parking space or a street lane.

"I've devoted my life as a social worker to people with developmental disabilities, and can't even walk with them in NA if they are in a wheelchair or have gait issues."

Below are photos taken on Monday morning, March 28, at the intersection of one-way Pearl Street and one-way Spring Street. It's the epicenter of downtown, quite close to where Bob Caesar never imagined a person walking from the Elks Club to his jewelry store to buy a diamond.

There are a total of eight push button signals, two on each corner. The ones pictured below are broken. In fact, one is broken on each corner. At least two of these have been broken for months. They're not the only ones downtown which are disabled, but at no other corner equipped with push buttons is traffic so constantly hazardous owing to drivers increasing speed to run beat red lights.

Note that the issue of malfunctioning push buttons doesn't address the situation at intersections like W 1st and Main, or Bank and Main, where nothing -- zero, zilch, nada -- is in place to slow traffic such that walkers can cross the street safely.

You'll note that throughout the period since the release of the Speck walkability study, Team Gahan has been careful to couch its public pronouncements about the future of street grid reform, of which there have been almost none, as being entirely devoted to making traffic safer.

Reams of evidence from across America and the world point to the flaws of this mode of "thinking," and provide abundant proof that had walkability been pursued first, before the other expensive projects pursued by the current administration, it would have been like a dose of steroids, enhancing investment and not devaluing it.

As it stands, there's a toxic stew under preparation.

• An auto-centric street grid
• Rebirth of downtown small business
• Poor lighting
• Inconsistent sidewalk maintenance
• Refusal to enforce ordinances (should there be sidewalk parking, ever?)
• Antediluvian municipal gatekeepers

Quite literally, multiple accidents are waiting to happen, as we prioritize one bright shiny object after another.

If Jeff Gahan isn't going to do anything substantive to make New Albany a walkable city, can't he just say so aloud, for attribution, and free us from the pain of watching him prevaricate?

Any suggestion he makes to the contrary is being disproved every single day on real city streets, where nothing is being done to indicate any serious intent to improve walkability, and plenty is being done to discourage it. There's only one honest way to conclude these thoughts:

Mr. Mayor, as it pertains to walkability, just shit or get off the pot. 

You're embarrassing the city by making private promises constantly contradicted by public indifference -- by your bizarre insistence that you're making omelettes without breaking eggs. Even your own people know it's a shell game.

Join me for an actual walk some day, and I'll show you exactly how urban walking works in real life, as opposed to the fantasyland bunker you prefer inhabiting. The same offer goes for your minions.

Do any of you walk downtown, ever?

Team Gahan's walkability gap (4 of many): "We’re all apparently okay with dead pedestrians as collateral damage for ensuring cars can travel quickly."

Team Gahan's walkability gap (3 of 3): "A Playbook on the Politics of Better Streets." WE NEED IT.

Team Gahan's walkability gap (2 of 3): "Is your city pedestrian unfriendly"? YEP.

Team Gahan's walkability gap (1 of 3): "If you want to make a walkable city, you need to do the little things well." WE DON'T.

Craig's revenge? Attack of the Killer Zombie Street Mattresses shifts to a rental property on Market.

This is Market, not Elm. We believe it's a different mattress.

Last week, we visited the Mattress Corner of 5th & Elm.

Twelve days later, that mattress is still right there, justified and ancient, on the Elm Street curb.

Finally on the 23rd, it was gone. Is the third time a charm?

Meanwhile, the street mattress explosion shifts to Market Street, within eyesight of the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats, the posited "ripple effect" of which never mentioned going to the mattresses.

The pride, the glory ... the Craig Block.

Today's street mattress comes to us courtesy of Ron Craig, who recently testified at council against any form of regulation pertaining to his rental properties.

Those protests go back a few years. I can find no follow-ups, either at NAC or local media. Does anyone know how the Great Vinyl Siding Hairball of 2012 turned out?

November 10, 2012
Deal proposed in preservation case regarding vinyl siding on New Albany building, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

June 3, 2012

Terminal ignorance of the law: Four years of vinyl siding sideshows ...

May 20, 2012

Too many cooks spoil the broth?

A belated R.I.P. to Delmer Berg, who fought against fascism.

The decidedly anti-communist Senator John McCain was moved to reflect on Delmer Berg's generation, his thoughts filtered through memories of a Hemingway novel.

John McCain: Salute to a Communist, by John McCain (New York Times)

... You might consider them romantics, fighting in a doomed cause for something greater than their self-interest. And even though men like Mr. Berg would identify with a cause, Communism, that inflicted far more misery than it ever alleviated — and rendered human dignity subservient to the state — I have always harbored admiration for their courage and sacrifice in Spain.

Berg died several weeks ago, even as Bernie Sanders continued his campaign for president as a democratic socialist. I wonder what Berg thought about that? I'll close the loop and think about Berg when I cast my primary ballot for Sanders.

Delmer Berg, last Abraham Lincoln Brigade veteran, dies (SF Gate)

Delmer Berg, the last known living veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which vainly fought against fascism’s advance into Spain in the late 1930s, died last Sunday Feb. 28 at his home in Columbia (Tuolumne County). He was 100.

His death was confirmed by Marina Garde, the executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives in New York, who said Mr. Berg was believed to have been the only survivor left of the nearly 3,000 quixotic young Americans who volunteered for the Spanish Civil War in a bloody prelude to World War II. About 800 of those who volunteered were believed to have been killed.

Mr. Berg, an unreconstructed Communist, was a 21-year-old union-card-carrying hotel dishwasher in 1937 when he spotted a billboard for the brigade and, through the Young Communist League, enlisted. After cobbling together bus fare to New York, he boarded the French luxury liner Champlain for France.

“I was a worker,” Mr. Berg told the Modesto Bee in November. “I was a farmer. I was in support of the Spanish working people, and I wanted to go to Spain to help them.”

On watchdog journalism, a crucial and forgotten local concept.

Let's begin the week with a foreign concept. Because ... a boy can dream.

Watchdog journalism (Wikipedia)

Watchdog journalism informs the public about goings-on in institutions and society, especially in circumstances where a significant portion of the public would demand changes in response. This might involve:

• Fact-checking statements of public officials
• Interviewing public figures and challenging them with problems or concerns
• Beat reporting to gather information from meetings members of the public might not otherwise attend, and to observe "on the ground" in broader society
• Investigative journalism, which involves information-gathering on a single story for a long period of time

Like a literal guard dog that barks when it notices an intruder, a "watchdog" role involves alerting others when a problem is detected. Common subjects are the government decision-making process, illegal activity, immorality, consumer protection issues, and environmental degradation.

Watchdog journalism can be located in a variety of news media, such as radio, television, Internet, and print media where it may be seen as "a unique strength of newspapers",[1] and additional new media and concepts such as weblogs and citizen journalism. Watchdog journalists also are called "watchmen", "agents of social control", or "moral guardians".

"The idea that people riding bikes don’t pay for the roads is pervasive, and completely untrue."

Because Easter is the perfect sort of day for myth-busting.

The Free Rider Myth – Who Really Pays for the Roads?, by Elly Blue (Momentum Mag)

... The idea that roads are funded by user fees paid by people who drive is one of the great myths that buttresses our entire way of life. While the veneer on that myth has been crumbling for some time, we have only recently been forced to begin to look hard at it. And the difference between riding a bicycle and driving a car is surprisingly vast – but not in the way most of us imagine.

What if I told you that by driving a car you become a freeloader, a drain on the economy? That people who bicycle instead are subsidizing a road system that they are largely not welcome on? In order to break even on the cost of roads and pay for every driver who uses them each year, we would need 54% of commuters using a bicycle as their sole means of transportation.

"Highway engineers dominated the decision-making. They were trained to design without much consideration for how a highway might impact urban fabric."

If we retained the public transportation infrastructure we possessed 100 years ago, Bulldog fans could have taken the train to Indianapolis and back for last night's championship game.

This article makes at least two points that we should never tire of emphasizing.

First, that "gas taxes have never fully paid for highways," even though we insist on believing it's true.

Second, "An unmistakable part of the equation was the federally supported program of 'urban renewal,' in which lower-income urban communities — mostly African-American — were targeted for removal."

That's history, folks.

Highways gutted American cities. So why did they build them? by Joseph Stromberg (Vox)

... So why did cities help build the expressways that would so profoundly decimate them? The answer involves a mix of self-interested industry groups, design choices made by people far away, a lack of municipal foresight, and outright institutional racism.

Ireland and "the ghosts of the Easter Rising."

Many decades ago my cousin the university professor suggested a book called The Uses of the Past, by Herbert Muller.

It proved to be seminal reading for me in the run-up to my 1980s-era travel phase, and while perhaps a bit dated now, the book remains an invaluable rumination about why we should care about history's lessons.

The central conundrum about history is that its uses are so often discarded, leaving only "The Glibness of the Past." Ireland is a fine example of this traipsing through the foggy dew, although we indulge far too often in America, too.

100 years on, the Irish lay to rest the ghosts of the Easter Rising, by Ed Vulliamy (The Guardian)

The 1916 uprising against British rule was a first step to independence, but the violence that followed led to its marginalisation – until now

... But many people agree that the executed leaders of 1916 would turn in their graves at the sight of modern Ireland and this carnival. One could take any line of the Proclamation with which to measure the present, and at this moment some people inevitably do.

Those in the west of the country – whence the Rising really came – who have for a decade been trying to combat a vast gas project by Shell, refer to the proclaimed “right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland”, in a country known for its generosity towards multinational companies. Maura Harrington of the Shell to Sea group talks about “people not having the same awareness of colonisation by the multinationals now as they had 100 years ago of colonisation by the British empire. Different imperium.”

Coogan wonders what 1916’s founding fathers would have thought about “the way the banks have looted this country with the consent and connivance of the political establishment. More people have committed suicide during this period of austerity than were killed during the Troubles. Thousands lose their homes every week, or else remain courtesy of vulture-capital mortgages.”

Gahan wins state high school championship, will take his coaching talents to the NBA.

Fresh off his state finals win, NAHS mayor and basketball mentor Jeff Gahan announced that he has decided to skip college coaching and move directly to the NBA.

"In this fall, this is very tough, in this fall I'm going to take my talents to the Bay Area and join the Golden State Warriors," said Gahan amid the bedlam as Bud Light Lime corks popped in his suite at the downtown Indianapolis Hampton Inn.

"Steve Kerr has nothing left to prove," said Gahan, "and neither do I."

Asked who'll replace him as mayor, Gahan waved away the question.

"Who said anything about quitting as mayor? I can run the city and coach the Warriors with my eyes closed."

"Duggins can have the Bulldogs until we TIF a new coach."

Editor's note: New Albany really has won the state championship, but the coach is Jim Shannon. Congratulations to the team. 

"My worry is that Democrats like Hillary have been saying, 'The Republicans are worse!' for so long that they've begun to believe it excuses everything."

(4 of 4)

Basketball-laden holiday weekends are death for readership, but this essay is worth your time to read. At this point, they're all "worse."

Why Young People Are Right About Hillary Clinton, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

... Young people have repudiated the campaign of Hillary Clinton in overwhelming and historic fashion, with Bernie Sanders winning under-30 voters by consistently absurd margins, as high as 80 to 85 percent in many states. He has done less well with young African-American voters, but even there he's seen some gains as time has gone on. And the energy coming from the pre-middle-aged has little to do with an inability to appreciate political reality.

Instead, the millions of young voters that are rejecting Hillary's campaign this year are making a carefully reasoned, even reluctant calculation about the limits of the insider politics both she and her husband have represented.

For young voters, the foundational issues of our age have been the Iraq invasion, the financial crisis, free trade, mass incarceration, domestic surveillance, police brutality, debt and income inequality, among others.

And to one degree or another, the modern Democratic Party, often including Hillary Clinton personally, has been on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues.

"And I think to myself there is no way to explain in a brief interview the power of the 40-year hurt in shaping American society."

(2 of 4)

Basketball-laden holiday weekends are death for readership, but not only is Bruce Springsteen's album The River timeless;it's also prescient.

US election 2016: The 40-year hurt (BBC Magazine)

The London-based American writer and broadcaster Michael Goldfarb is frequently asked on air why this year's US election has turned out to be so unusual, and whether insurgent Republican candidate Donald Trump can really win. He has to give a short answer. The long answer, he argues here, involves going back 40 years.

Bruce Springsteen is coming to London with the River tour. At £170 for the cheapest pair, I can't afford to see the Boss any more, even if my body could handle standing on Wembley Stadium's pitch for three-and-a-half-hours in an early June drizzle.

It's interesting that Springsteen is re-exploring The River album again. Whenever the anger that simmers in America erupts and reminds the rest of the world that the country is troubled, he seems to be the cultural figure whose work offers an explanation.

"For millions of Americans, the dysfunction of our political system may be frightening, but it’s creating a unique reform moment."

(1 of 4)

Basketball-laden holiday weekends are death for readership, but I'd rather think about public participation, ranked-choice voting, Constitutional reform and other structural reforms.

This Is What Political Revolution Really Looks Like, by Wendy R. Weiser, Rob Richie and Sanford Levinson (The Nation)

Without these structural reforms to American democracy, even a progressive presidency couldn’t accomplish much.

The rise of Bernie Sanders, whatever the fate of his campaign, has likely altered the trajectory of progressive politics in the United States for decades to come. He has not only rallied millions of supporters to stand with him, in the words of Michael Harrington, on “the left wing of the possible,” he has significantly expanded the realm of the possible itself. Yet for many on the left even Sanders’s fiery denunciations of a rigged political and economic system fail to account for how profoundly that is the case and how challenging it will be to un-rig it. In this installment of “That’s Debatable,” our continuing series of forums, Wendy Weiser, Rob Richie, and Sanford Levinson argue that deeper structural reforms would be necessary for a “political revolution” to make our federal government more responsive to the people in whose name it governs and whose interests it is supposed to serve.

"Today, by calling yourself a socialist, you signal a break with and critique of an economic and political order that is rigged against you."

(3 of 4)

Basketball-laden holiday weekends are death for readership, but socialists like me can take heart in the possibilities.

The Long March of Bernie’s Army, by Harold Meyerson (The American Prospect)

Where it came from; where it’s headed.

... This is something new under the political sun. At no time in U.S. history have so many Americans supported a socialist presidential candidate, much less called themselves socialists. The apogee of socialists’ electoral performance came in 1912, when Eugene V. Debs won 6 percent of the vote running for president on the Socialist Party ticket. What’s more, the mystery of this socialist emergence is deepened by the fact that there is no visible organization in the United States that is recruiting people to socialism. The Democratic Socialists of America (of which I’m a vice-chair) has just several thousand members, and is almost entirely absent from many American cities. At first glance, this new socialist presence just seems to have sprung up, unsummoned, unannounced.

And yet, it clearly has been building for years. Its emergence was foretold by Occupy Wall Street, and the polls that showed most Americans looked positively upon its message—that the 1 percent has flourished at the expense of the 99 percent—if not on the protesters themselves. It was foretold by the surprising rise to bestseller status of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by the success of the Fight for 15 movement in prompting cities and states to raise the minimum wage, and by two movements (in themselves, non-socialist, but nonetheless radicalizing) of the minority young: the Dreamers, demanding citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and Black Lives Matter, demanding an end to discriminatory criminal justice. More broadly, it was foretold by the rise of a distinct civic left: With millennials and minorities reshaping urban America, 27 of the nation’s 30 largest cities now have Democratic mayors—the greatest urban partisan imbalance in the nation’s history. Many of those cities have enacted groundbreaking progressive legislation—instituting and raising the minimum wage, mandating paid sick days, forbidding their police forces from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, giving collective-bargaining rights to independent contractors.

What’s the substance of the new American socialism?

You have to wonder how things like this affect the bar business downtown.

The ED and the BC chart the arc of the sun as it climbs the New Gahanian sky.

“David, it’s David.”

“Duggins? It’s 4 o’clock in the blessed a.m.”

“Listen, Brewer – just be glad it isn’t the mayor.”

“True that. What’s up?”

“We have a problem. The switch is broken, and Home Depot is closed.”

“What switch? The Random Parks Jobs Generator Switch?”

“No, no. Are you kidding? Parks are the only economic development plan we have. We’re even going to generate a hover board park inside Pillsbury next week. No, I’m talking about the main switch.”

“You mean … ”

“That’s right. The Sunrise Switch.”

“What happened?”

“I dunno; cheap Chinese plastic shit – and to think we paid Coffey $675.85 for it at the auction house, THEN the son-of-a-bitch wigged out and flipped teams, the bastard. Anyway, the switch fell apart overnight.”

“What if the mayor wakes up and he can’t flip the Sunrise Switch?”

“Exactly. You know as well as I do. No switch, and the sun won’t come up today.”

“Jesus. It’s like that Hemingway book, ‘The Sun Also Rises.’”

“Never heard of it. Reading really sucks. Come to think of it, that’s the only thing Zurschmiede got right the entire campaign – never admit to reading.”

“Oh, I didn’t actually read it. Baylor said something about it on his blog.”

“Really? I’ll let Rogar know. I'm sure she'll have something to say.”

---

“What’s the big deal, anyway? I mean, the switch isn’t actually connected to anything. The sun’s going to come up whether Jeff pushes a button or not.”

“Yeah, but the mayor doesn’t know that. Look, you’re the building commissioner. Can’t you go confiscate a light switch from a derelict property somewhere? We can cut a check; no big deal.”

“That would be stealing from the taxpayers.”

“Well, so is TIF, and I didn’t see you objecting to any of that.”

“Calm down. It’s your fault that Jeff thinks he controls the sunrise.”

“Bullshit. How so?”

“You’re the one who showed him that video about North Korea.”

“Wasn’t me. I have no idea what North Korea is. Now, sweet home Sellersburg’s another story. I know all about that – and One Southern Indiana. They always make me feel dreamy.”

“It definitely was you. The link came from NA Confidential, and you showed Gahan the video and said see, this guy’s got nothing on you. I remember it. You told the mayor that plaques were small potatoes, and from now on it was statues only.”

“Whatever. You have to break a few eggs if you want to be deputy mayor.”

“I can’t believe you’re still going on about that. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times. Mayors don’t give their sons-in-law cushy jobs just to turn around appoint you deputy mayor.”

“Hmm. Maybe I can be the son he never had. You know, I’m only here because I believe in Jeff Gahan.”

“Uh huh. Like you’re the first one to drink the Kool-Aid. But look, what about that other sun, the one that won’t rise and light the sky unless our boss thinks he made it so by throwing a switch? We need to think outside the box.”

“But didn’t we prohibit that? I’ll ask Adam Disney first thing.”

---

“David, I’ve got it.”

“What have you got, David?”

“Call those architects – you know, the ones who wanted to build a strip mall on Community Park a few years back.”

“Dude, that was cheeky. The county should have nailed that. You mean the firm of Same, Old & Suspect?”

“Right, them. Didn’t one of them just design your dog park?”

“Right. Around the office, we call him The Human Shield. He talks and talks about diplomas, and everyone forgets the political part.”

“Okay. So get him over to Gahan’s place, stat. Stick him on one of those Spring Street dump trucks. They drive like demons.”

“It’s why they call them Fast Track. Got it. Architect on dump truck. Then what?”

“When the mayor wakes up, the architect is right there – we’ll need a news crew, too. Anyone on payroll?

“WHAS backed us really nice on the Native American nutjob thing.”

“That works. Have them there, waiting. When Gahan reaches over to turn on the sun, the architect grabs his hand and stops him.”

“Go on.”

“He says, Mr. Mayor, the Baylorites have booby-trapped the sun. If you touch that switch, you’ll see your shadow, and we’ll have six more years of bad baseball teams in Cincinnati.”

“That’s good. He’ll buy that. But what about the sun? If the sun doesn’t rise in New Albany, I may have to go where it’s warm.”

“I’m getting there. So, the architect tells Jeff: Look, no more switches. You can do it with your head, kinda like voodoo. All you have to do is repeat after me: ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.’”

“Sniffle.”

“Omigod! Duggins, are you crying?”

“It’s so beautiful. The mayor swallows the bait, and voy-logee, no more Sun Switch. We’ll just throw that 700 bucks on the next paving contract. Just one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Which one of us is the Scarecrow?”

"To issue a City "press release" that simply quotes a monopoly service provider about "increased download speeds," without understanding the claim, allows that monopoly continued control over a vital city service."

The Green Mouse has many friends. One of them submitted this commentary after viewing yesterday's mayoral press release:

Internet Speed Increases Coming to New Albany TWC Customers

Nearly a week ago, Time Warner Cable announced that it was offering a six-fold boost in broadband speed to customers in Louisville and Jeffersonville at no cost to its customers. The City of New Albany is very pleased to announce that those same increases will be brought to customers in New Albany at no cost.

“Since as early as 2013, I have pushed for increased internet speeds, and recognize the economic impact that this infrastructure can bring to a community,” stated Mayor Gahan. “We are very happy that Time Warner Cable will be extending this speed increase to New Albany.”

Not that Gahan even once publicly acknowledged as much during the entirety of his 2015 re-election campaign.

As Frank Zappa once said, "Take it away, Bob."

---

Mayor Gahan hasn't done anything to increase internet speeds in New Albany. Time Warner Cable is "increasing internet speeds at no charge" because so many are cutting their cable TV service, opting instead to stream TWC data and video to their computers, watching downloaded movies instead of cable channels.

But the majority of New Albany residents won't see any difference in the "faster speeds". Why? Most folks in New Albany use old modems that aren't capable of using the new data stream rates.

And that's where Time Warner will clean up. In city after city, where Time Warner has rolled out the "TWC Maxx" service that Mayor Gahan mentions, they are charging up to an additional $ 100 - $ 125 per year for the newly necessary modem. That's not faster internet "at no charge."

Even though Time Warner says "there is no change in the price of Time Warner Cable Internet plans, although speeds have increased," New Albany citizens won't see an increase in their cable download speeds without the new TWC modems. Surprise!

And that's where Mayor Gahan is simply missing the overall point about the importance of internet service to the future of New Albany.

As Mayor, he could demand far greater services from the city's monopoly cable provider (Time Warner Cable) when the franchise comes up for renewal. Progressive cities have made TWC provide a host of services for free in order to keep their franchise in those cities.

Philadelphia recently negotiated with Comcast, that city's cable provider. In a series of hearings before the city council, Comcast commited to providing more funding to Philadelphia schools and taking steps to close the digital divide. This makes Philadelphia’s cable franchise a model for other communities across the nation.

The city has an "Internet Essentials" program that includes low-income seniors. Comcast has also committed to providing resources for technology education in Philadelphia schools and to ensuring basic living-wage protections for all its local employees.

Seattle negotiated its existing cable contract to include

• Discounted Internet for low-income seniors
• Increased grant money from $50,000 for one year, to $500,000 over five years, for digital equity programs to bring Internet service to more people
• Laptops for youth at risk of losing their homes

The existing negotiated contract in Seattle already included benefits that Comcast gives the city:

• 600 free Internet connections to nonprofits
• $8 million to support public, education and government channels
• Free cable to government and schools
• Discounted cable TV for low-income households
• Discounted Internet service for families with children who qualify for free or reduced lunch

Seattle's discounted Internet service is $9.95 per month for very basic speeds.

To issue a City "press release" that simply quotes a monopoly service provider about "increased download speeds" without understanding the claim allows that monopoly continued control over a vital city service. The City Council, working with Mayor Gahan could use their power to hold Time Warner's feet to the fire and make them provide more than the bare minimum, but they aren't.

The City "press release" quotes Time Warner: "We will boost Internet speeds for customers up to six times faster, dramatically improve the TV product…"

They aren't talking about helping businesses in New Albany with data streaming. They're talking about consumers of TV and movies. When Mayor Gahan says that he "recognize(s) the economic impact that this infrastructure (?) can bring to a community," he may well be worried.

Businesses large enough to fill the soon empty Pillsbury plant need reliable, high-speed upload data streams. Clark County has fiber optic internet data streaming now. Large corporations will continue to locate where they can better compete and communicate - Clark County.

This press release doesn't claim there will be a significant boost in upload speeds. TWC claims a 400% increase, but 4 MB per second boosted to 12-16 MB per second doesn't put you in the same league as Clarksville and Jeffersonville. To illustrate the point - downloading movies - a New Albany resident needs 10.5 minutes to download a movie with Time Warner but a Clarksville resident needs only 8 seconds to download the same movie using fiber optic internet.

Cable franchise renewal has been used by many cities in America to make a real difference in their residents' quality of life. New Albany's Mayor and the City Council should do the same.

Scarlet letter? As New Albany hemorrhages jobs, we reveal Team Gahan's economic development argument.

(Reader Submission -- thanks)

The South does it again -- wait, Indiana did it first. No matter: "The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte."

C'mon -- you know Grooms would have voted in favor if he lived in North Carolina.

The real world, from the only sportswriter who matters.

The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte. Now. (By Dave Zirin, The Nation)

... The 2017 NBA All-Star Game is due to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina. Silver should announce as soon as possible that this game needs to be moved unless the state legislature overturns its new law set to go in effect April 1 “blocking local governments from passing anti-discrimination rules to grant protections to gay and transgender people.”

The law was passed as a direct response to the City of Charlotte for passing an ordinance to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people from being discriminated against by businesses. Outrageously, the North Carolina legislature scheduled an extraordinary special session—the first time they have done so in 35 years—to annul the Charlotte ordinance before it went into effect. It’s remarkable how quickly lawmakers leap to actually do their jobs when the work involves stripping people of their rights. It is also stunning how all of the Dixie paeans to local control and states’ rights go out the window when it comes to issues such as these.

The law also bans students from using restrooms that correlate with their gender identity if it is not what is listed on their birth certificate. “Legislators have gone out of their way to stigmatize and marginalize transgender North Carolinians by pushing ugly and fundamentally untrue stereotypes that are based on fear and ignorance and not supported by the experiences of more than 200 cities with these protections,” Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said in a statement.

This law empowers businesses across the state to put signs in their windows saying that they reserve the right to deny service to anyone whom they perceive to be part of the LGBT community. Think about that for a second: The law empowers right-wing small-business owners to legally discriminate based on their own “gaydar.”

Under the shadow of this legislation, the NBA really only has one recourse: It needs to move the 2017 All-Star Game and show the world that it is not going to “fall behind” on what is a very elemental issue of human rights and dignity. The NBA Players Association, led by the estimable Michele Roberts, should also call for Adam Silver to take this step.

10 Days In ... cooking school?

As an aside, I'll be live blogging the next New Albany city council meeting on April 4.

You know, news and shit.

February 28, 2016

154 days since we had a News and Tribune reporter in New Albany, but look: Cooking School! In Jeffersonville!

Dog daze: With Gahan back in the safe house, civilian architect Timperman now is the city's official spokesman.

You just knew there had to be a catch -- and I don't mean dogs playing Frisbee.

When Mayor Jeff Gahan donned his standard issue suit and tie for an uncharacteristic public appearance at Cannon Acres with WDRB's Gil Corsey, actually speaking on behalf of his own administration without the usual sycophants and intermediaries for protective filtration,

"Right now the last thing we'd want to do is be disrespectful to anyone," Gahan said.

Amid instantaneous and contagious community-wide laughter, it was only a matter of milliseconds until chief handler Adam Disney speed-dialed Gahan to remind the mayor that the only way he can refrain from disrespect is to remain safely ensconced in the down-low bunker.

In the emergency meeting that followed, you can almost see them looking around the room ... so, who can we use?

Hall? He already does council meetings.

Duggins? No, he's got deputy mayor shit to do, and anyway, television cameras bring out the dollar sign tattoos a bit too vividly.

Thompson? Absolutely not. He might tell the truth.

(Disney's iPad begins to glow with inspiration)

Timperman? Ah, now there's an idea. He's got more credentials than Bono Road has potholes.  Perfect. Get him out there now ...

Petition circulates after concerns over New Albany dog park location (WAVE-3)

... "If the state archeologist wanted to come down here and check again, that’s fine with me, because I don’t have any dog in this fight and I think that the city has tried very hard to comply with the state’s requirements," Timperman said.

Today's coda:

Remember when fans of the New Albany farmers market were led to believe that the market was going to be moved to the parking garage?

Of course, they were misled, and it was pure stage-managed hokum, but at least it showed there actually were fans of the farmers market.

Fast forward to the past week's dog park controversy. Zealous advocates of the dog park now are deluging social media with their support for ... dogs... wait. No, they're not. Outside of city workers and the mayor's family (is that a redundancy?), there isn't any support for a dog park.

None.

Zilch.

Nada.

Yet again, we ask: Why is money being spent on this -- Native American site or not?

---

Previously at NAC:

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Autodidact -- and how David Duggins denigrates one of them amid Team Gahan's zeal for a dog park.

One week later, the newspaper reluctantly diverts its attention from cooking school and learns that "park site in New Albany draws concerns."

In unprecedented act of territorial pissing, outraged dogs gather to protest Native Americans.

Belatedly addressing the Cannon Acres dog park fiasco, Mayor Gahan insists he watched "Dances with Wolves" on the VCR over the weekend.

Tony Nava on WDRB: "Would we want to use a church grounds as a dog park?"

4:00 p.m. today: Citizens trying to save a Native American church from being used as an inappropriate and unnecessary dog park.

Commentary: Amid quintessential City Hall arrogance, a petition to "save the Cannon Acres Native American site."

Dog crap on a sacred area: Jeff Gahan moves timeline forward, with the desecration of a 3,000-6,000 Native American site to begin Monday.

An AWOL Jeff Gahan evades Native American activist seeking dialogue about potential site destruction at the dog park.

The city of New Albany may soon try to destroy a 3,000 to 6,000 year old Native American site to build a dog park.

ON THE AVENUES: Introducing New Albany Craft Beer Week, May 27 – June 4, 2016.

ON THE AVENUES: Introducing New Albany Craft Beer Week, May 27 – June 4, 2016.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Earlier in 2016, it was revealed that the annual Keg Liquors Fest of Ale will relocate to New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater. For the past decade, Fest of Ale has been held in Clarksville.

The 2016 date for Keg Liquors Fest of Ale is Saturday, June 4, and the event is sure to attract around 1,500 craft beer devotees, with room for future growth. As in the past, proceeds are to be donated to the Crusade for Children, and if experience is any indication, there will be stellar selection of craft beer samples.

Another riverside festival dominated local headlines earlier this week, as the city of Jeffersonville announced it would be hosting Abbey Road on the River (an important Beatles-themed music festival) in 2017. Next year it will shift to Indiana from its current home on the Belvedere in downtown Louisville.

My guess is that many readers would rank Abbey Road on the River above Keg Liquors Fest of Ale in approximate order of importance. I don’t think so, and although I’m as much of a Beatles fan as anyone, it is my opinion that New Albany comes out ahead with craft beer.

That’s because there’s quite a lot of craft beer in New Albany these days, which in itself is a statement of fact once deemed unlikely, even by me.

Fest of Ale exists because of craft beer’s explosive growth. Ratings regularly confirm Keg Liquors as a major regional retail player when it comes to craft beer. Craft beer market penetration in Indiana is in the top twenty, nationwide, and there are 120 operational Hoosier breweries – three of them in New Albany.

Taken together, these factors combine to create considerable potential synergy for New Albany. Especially downtown, we’re already is a craft beer hotbed, far more so than Jeffersonville.

Fest of Ale’s presence in New Albany provides the reinforcement of an exclamation mark for what has become a formidable daily craft beer presence.

Just look at a map of downtown New Albany. Draw a line from Floyd County Brewing to Dragon King’s Daughter, then from DKD to Gospel Bird, and finally from Gospel Bird back to FCBC. There are somewhere between 75 and 100 draft spouts inside this triangle – to be sure, not all pouring craft beers, but perhaps as many as 80% are.

That’s big. If you were here ten years ago, you understand how big -- and I’m purposefully excluding the remainder of the city: NABC Pizzeria & Public House, Donum Dei Brewery, Bridge Liquors, Sunset Spirits … the list is large, indeed.

As to why this matters – why the existence of small, independently owned breweries constitutes hopeful and helpful tends – consider these words from an instructive essay in All About Beer magazine.

Breweries aren’t like the average industrial plant. They are people magnets, bringing folks in who are curious to try a pint of locally made IPA. In fairly short order, breweries can create little pockets of prosperity in cities that can (and often do) radiate out into the neighborhood. Pretty soon, other businesses see the bustle and consider moving in, too. It doesn’t hurt that breweries often find run-down parts of towns that have great buildings. Once a brewery moves in and refurbishes an old building, it reveals the innate promise of adjacent buildings to prospective renters.

In New Albany, we can extend this analogy to any number of eateries and bars that have opened during the past decade. They cannot achieve economic development miracles all by themselves, but when community pillars are unable to muster more compelling strategies, food and drink mark a good place to start.

---

The advent of Keg Liquors Fest of Ale in New Albany provides an intriguing opportunity to expand our daily municipal celebration of craft beer by incorporating a powerful promotional tool.

It’s called New Albany Craft Beer Week.

Provisional graphic. Mr. Thrasher, we need you.

Many such weeks are honored across America. They vary in size and scope, and range across districts, cities and states, but conceptually, there is relative uniformity.

The idea is to educate and disseminate craft beer consciousness, with an ulterior motive of letting consumers know more about the establishments and people who make it all possible.

In 2016, the New Albany Restaurant & Bar Association (NARBA) already is planning a New Albany Restaurant & Bar Week to bridge the days between Indie Fest (Saturday, September 24) with the Harvest Homecoming Parade and NARBA’s pop-up food and beer garden (Biers on Parade) at the Farmers Market (Saturday, October 1).

New Albany Restaurant & Bar Week in autumn is intended to emphasize food, and now we have a natural linkage in springtime to do the same for craft beer, hence New Albany Craft Beer Week.

At some point down the road, perhaps Gary can organize a wine fest in summer, or Matt something to do with cider in winter. The pairing possibilities are endless.

Though as yet unconfirmed, the city of New Albany’s third annual Boomtown Ball should fall on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, which is May 29. As noted, Keg Liquors Fest of Ale will be on June 4. Consequently, we’ll aim for a New Albany Craft Beer Week kickoff on Friday, May 27.

From May 27 through June 4, there will be numerous opportunities for restaurants, breweries, bars and retailers to build events and promotions around craft beer -- tastings, special releases and beer dinners, perhaps involving wholesale and brewer representatives, who’ll be in town for Fest of Ale, anyway.

Obviously, both Boomtown Ball and Keg Liquors Fest of Ale are stand-alone entities, each with its own playbook for participation. I’m speaking here of weaving complementary craft beer showcases in and around these bigger ticket draws.

This entire idea has risen spontaneously, and NARBA doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for it. However, several of us have been involved with similar undertakings in the past, as I was with Louisville Craft Beer Week’s launch in 2010.

NARBA’s basic task for New Albany Craft Beer Week will be to collect information, direct traffic, coordinate and do the best we can to spread the word. In the coming days, we’ll get to work designing a poster (I’m looking at you, Dave Thrasher) and some rudimentary semblance of a web site or Facebook page.

Owners and operators: Merely plan your event to interest the clientele you already have. This needn’t be nuclear physics. If Bell’s is your big seller, mention New Albany Craft Beer Week to your Bell’s sales rep, and ask for suggestions. They’re eager to serve you.

Take them up on it.

A tremendous opportunity awaits. We can expand New Albany’s footprint on the metropolitan beer map, spread the word about our incredible local food and drink community, and have some fun.

Your ideas are critical, so let me have ‘em.

---

March 17: ON THE AVENUES: Erin Go Blagh -- a timeless classic for a green-hued holiday.

March 10: ON THE AVENUES: A funny thing happened on the way to a city council nightcap.

March 3: ON THE AVENUES: Since 1960, outside looking in.

February 29: ON THE AVENUES REPRISE: Die hard the Hunter, or the political "impossibility" of rental property registration in New Albany (2015).

Independent business peeps take note: The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is far more relevant than One Southern Indiana.

The ILSR's Stacy Mitchell tweeted these words earlier today.

We need to transform “buy local" from a consumers movement into a political movement.

I pumped my fist without realizing it. Here's a page (and an organization) worth every independent business person's time to monitor .

Independent Business: Building a Community-Scaled Economy

Overview

Places that are home to numerous locally owned businesses are more prosperous, sustainable, and resilient than those in which much of the economy is controlled by a few big corporations.

For more than a decade, ILSR has worked with elected officials, grassroots organizations, and business groups to implement policies that reduce the power of dominant corporations, revitalize neighborhood commercial districts, and strengthen and rebuild independent businesses. Today, there are encouraging signs that community-scaled enterprises are on the rise, charting a path toward a more just and sustainable economy.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Autodidact -- and how David Duggins denigrates one of them amid Team Gahan's zeal for a dog park.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show rental property owners you're smarter than them. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us watching as every tree in town is transformed into firewood, all we really have is time on our hands -- moments enough for us to learn something.

This week, a different approach.

Autodidact (aw-toe-DIE-dakt) is a fancy Greek word meaning “self-taught.” Simply stated, an autodidact has gathered knowledge without the benefit of formal or specialized education.

Perhaps the most celebrated example of an autodidact is Leonardo Da Vinci. We now refer to him as a “Renaissance man,” because this term implies expertise in multiple areas of the human experience. In Leonardo’s case, he excelled at painting, sculpting, engineering, architecture, music, geology and astronomy. This list is by no means comprehensive.

A more recent pop culture exemplar is Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, guitar virtuoso and a former member of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers. You may not know that Baxter also has worked for many years as a respected consultant to the US Department of Defense on the topic of ballistic missile defense, of which he is entirely self-taught.

Autodidact is a concept of respect, or at least it should be, except that this is New Albany.

At Tuesday’s weekly meeting of the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety, economic development director David Duggins introduced Larry Timperman. He is a local architect, and the designer of the controversial dog park to be installed at Cannon Acres.

Links to previous coverage here.

Last week local Native American activists, most notably Tony Nava, became aware of these plans and protested. Their objections are ongoing. So are is the city's plan to begin construction.

More than a decade ago, when proposals for this acreage were first made, archaeological studies were commissioned and conducted. Nava believes that these previous studies were not sufficiently comprehensive, and in any event, a further phase should be conducted prior to the dog park’s construction.

To speak with Nava about Native American history and culture is to understand that what he might lack in academic credentials, he has learned through self-motivation and study.

That's an autodidact.

Larry Timperman is quiet and personable. He exudes stolid competence. As the dog park protest crescendo began to rise last week, he quickly was chosen by Team Gahan to serve as its public shield, i.e., the soft-spoken and apolitical architect and planner whose very presence aims at diverting the discussion from the forever troublesome back corridor deal-making in which the mayor and Duggins select and reward builders, contractors and ancillaries.

Over the weekend, in an interview on WHAS, Timperman referred to the 2005 state archaeological survey, commenting that in situations like this one, trained planners always go with the most recent letter.

He fleshed out this comment at the Tuesday morning BOW meeting. According to the most recent letter from the Indiana state archaeologist (presumably, from 2005), the two previous surveys marked certain quadrants at Cannon Acres as the only ones likely to contain Native American artifacts. So long as the city builds around them -- no harm, no foul.

(Nava points out that these surveys were conveniently spaced to allow the soccer fields subsequently installed at Cannon Acres).

But to me, the most interesting aspect of Timperman’s presentation – and what returns us to autodidact – came only after he finished speaking.

Duggins rose and immediately asked Timperman to explain his professional background and credentials, which the architect was more than happy to do. Figuratively, Timperman modestly pulled his wallet from his back pocket and allowed the vinyl pouches containing degrees, certifications and endorsements to cascade like a Slinky, all the way to the floor.

The intent was unmistakable.

In a room 95% filled with mayoral appointees and functionaries, none of whom gives a damn about Native American anything, and all of whom want nothing more than to be spared the mayor’s 2:00 a.m. phone calls, Duggins was tossing bloody meat to the true believers, heaping scorn on Nava for the latter’s temerity in first trying to speak with the great and inaccessible Oz, then claiming knowledge as an autodidact.

Our deputy mayor-pretend had a point to make: It’s the nicely perfumed, well-remunerated, professionally recognized white man who should be trusted, not some crackpot activist who couldn’t possibly marshal facts without having first attended the right school – you know, like Silver Creek.

Throughout the shamelessness, Warren Nash played his familiar role of leering, biased enabler:

“Wow, Mr. Duggins, do you mean to say we’ve known all these things from the very start and exercised our stewardship with the sort of flawless aplomb that we’ve come to expect from our Dear Leader?”

Nava’s an autodidact. We should praise him, not denigrate him, but this clash was inevitable. From Gahan’s standpoint, comprehension of Native American culture is impossible precisely because it isn’t right there in front of him, like an aquatic center or Disney theme park. It’s a spiritual thing. It can’t be held in one’s hand, raffled or monetized for campaign finance.

You can keep your Philistines.

Give me the autodidact, any day.

---

Previously at NAC:

One week later, the newspaper reluctantly diverts its attention from cooking school and learns that "park site in New Albany draws concerns."

In unprecedented act of territorial pissing, outraged dogs gather to protest Native Americans.

Belatedly addressing the Cannon Acres dog park fiasco, Mayor Gahan insists he watched "Dances with Wolves" on the VCR over the weekend.

Tony Nava on WDRB: "Would we want to use a church grounds as a dog park?"

4:00 p.m. today: Citizens trying to save a Native American church from being used as an inappropriate and unnecessary dog park.

Commentary: Amid quintessential City Hall arrogance, a petition to "save the Cannon Acres Native American site."

Dog crap on a sacred area: Jeff Gahan moves timeline forward, with the desecration of a 3,000-6,000 Native American site to begin Monday.

An AWOL Jeff Gahan evades Native American activist seeking dialogue about potential site destruction at the dog park.

The city of New Albany may soon try to destroy a 3,000 to 6,000 year old Native American site to build a dog park.

The answer to persistent stormwater runoff issues? Clear-cutting, of course.

Because a "green" way is all about unimpeded vistas?

Rorschach test? Fb reader says, "It's an homage to the mayor's head."

Previously at NAC:

Down-low forestry: "Plant some trees to save a town from flooding? Not a bad idea."

One week later, the newspaper reluctantly diverts its attention from cooking school and learns that "park site in New Albany draws concerns."

Each day, we see the ramifications of the News and Tribune's ongoing inability (unwillingness?) to hire a reporter for the New Albany city beat. It isn't just that the newspaper proves late to the table on the Cannon Acres/Native American story.

Many questions that might have been asked and should have been asked aren't, because staffers filling in aren't as familiar with the running story. That's why beat reporters cover a beat. Bill Hanson has a lot to answer for. Unfortunately, he emulates Jeff Gahan as it pertains to openness.

City Hall's case rests on architect Larry Timperman's openly stated reliance on a letter from the state of Indiana delineating what lies where at Cannon Acres. The letter references stages of archaeological examination conducted more than a decade ago. Timperman told WHAS-11 that planners in his position always trust the most recent letter.

But what if different, newer instructions were to be issued by the state? That's the crux of it. I'll have more on this later today in "Shane's Excellent New Words." If you're just tuning in, see NAC's "previous story" links below.

Park site in New Albany draws concerns, by Chris Morris

NEW ALBANY — Julia Youngblood and city officials agreed to disagree Tuesday morning as she walked out of the City-County Building.

Youngblood, Floyds Knobs, is concerned that the proposed dog park planned for Cannon Acres, which is off Budd Road, will disturb ancient Native American historic sites which includes artifacts and possible burials. But the two historic mounds identified by Indiana Department of Natural Resources Archaeologist Cathy Draeger-Williams won't be disturbed, according to David Duggins, director of Economic Development and Redevelopment for New Albany.

Duggins explained to Youngblood after the meeting that only fencing will be placed around the area designated for the dog park. He said there will be no digging or excavating on the site. There will also be gravel paths built to the dog park area at the park.

"We have have been respectful of the historic significance of the property," Duggins said.

Youngblood and Duggins, along with architect Larry Timperman and city engineer Larry Summers, talked for several minutes following Tuesday's Board of Works meeting.

---

Previously at NAC:

In unprecedented act of territorial pissing, outraged dogs gather to protest Native Americans.

Belatedly addressing the Cannon Acres dog park fiasco, Mayor Gahan insists he watched "Dances with Wolves" on the VCR over the weekend.

Tony Nava on WDRB: "Would we want to use a church grounds as a dog park?"

4:00 p.m. today: Citizens trying to save a Native American church from being used as an inappropriate and unnecessary dog park.

Commentary: Amid quintessential City Hall arrogance, a petition to "save the Cannon Acres Native American site."

Dog crap on a sacred area: Jeff Gahan moves timeline forward, with the desecration of a 3,000-6,000 Native American site to begin Monday.

An AWOL Jeff Gahan evades Native American activist seeking dialogue about potential site destruction at the dog park.

The city of New Albany may soon try to destroy a 3,000 to 6,000 year old Native American site to build a dog park.

"Night soil," or when America's cities were full of crap (and crap-removal campaign finance enhancement).

It's been like shooting fish in a barrel this week. The more degraded Oz gets, the richer the comedic possibilities.

Is it still night soil if the doggies do-do it?

The 19th-Century Night Soil Men Who Carted Away America’s Waste, by Adee Braun (Atlas Obscura)

On a summer day in 1873, a cart stood on 6th Avenue in New York City filled to the brink with raw human waste. The cart was uncovered—its contents exposed to the air and to the passers-by who retched and gagged as they scurried away. Excrement dipped off the sides of the cart, and the sidewalks and gutters were smeared with the stuff. The stench was so strong that it could be smelled from more than a block away. It was another day in pre-sewer America.

Before municipal sewer systems, excreta piled up in the privies of people’s homes—essentially a deep hole in the ground. But these poop storage units did not have unlimited capacity.

When the privies were eventually filled, that’s when the night soil men were called in.

Twelve days later, that mattress is still right there, justified and ancient, on the Elm Street curb.

Photo taken at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, March 21. 

The last time I looked, it was March 10, and this mattress was there. The ones before it were there for three weeks, since the middle of February.

Off in the distance you can see Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats, where apartments millennials can't afford will assuredly lead to a ripple effect that submerges this and other street garbage -- unless we've reached "peak millennial," and the "business of residency" once again will be gauged by mattresses on the street, not in decrepit slumlord properties.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking that "physically cleaner" encompasses this mattress, too.

In case you were wondering how much it costs for the city to hire quality bands ...

From the minutes of last week's Board of Public Works and Safety meeting.

Make no mistake: The Crashers are top-flight, and musicians should be paid when they perform. Too often, they're not.

I merely dream of the day when a fraction of the money being spent by City Hall on temporary downtown entertainment facilities is devoted to investing in amphitheater infrastructure.