SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS (special double-down-low edition): Potemkin village.

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 that pesky CM Cappuccino that you're brighter than him.

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 who want nothing more than to be able to comprehend why we pave a street knowing that it will be destroyed by construction a mere two months later ... well, all we have is votive Oz time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

Now for the meat. In historical fact, the phenomenon of the Potemkin village may or may not be true, but it's a great story of fake building fronts erected to deceive a passing absolute monarch. After a few beers in New Albany, the notion of Potemkin village begins to blend with the tale of the emperor's new clothes, and then you remember that scene in Blazing Saddles when the action shifts from fiction to film set.

First, a definition.

Potemkin village

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase "Potemkin village" (also "Potyomkin village", derived from the Russian: Потёмкинские деревни, Potyomkinskiye derevni) was originally used to describe a fake portable village, built only to impress. According to the story, Grigory Potemkin erected the fake portable settlement along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her journey to Crimea in 1787. The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is. Some modern historians claim the original story is exaggerated.

Next, an example:

There are times when New Albany is more Potemkin village than reality, when it seems that everything is done only for show and appearance, and nothing elemental ever really changes even as victory is declared and the next election looms.  

Photo credit.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Glower (or, the 5th Street Paving Rumba).

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 the plebeians that you're brighter 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 who want nothing more than to grasp the need for a dog park in a non-walkable area atop a Native American ceremonial site, all we have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

On Monday night at the city council meeting, I inadvertently stumbled across the magic, prize-winning words, mouthed sotto voce in the background, but with sufficient emphasis to merit a torso-twisting ... that's right, glower. The namesake of this weekly column glowered at me, and as such, I was gifted with a glower.

It was glowerful -- which is NOT a real word.

glower

glow·er (glou′ər)

intr.v. glow·ered, glow·er·ing, glow·ers
To look or stare angrily or sullenly: glowered at the rude patron. See Synonyms at frown.
n. An angry or sullen look or stare.

[Middle English gloren, probably of Scandinavian origin; see ghel- in Indo-European roots.]

glow′er·ing·ly adv.

Finally, a bit more on the northern origins of glower.

[C16: probably of Scandinavian origin; related to Middle Low German glūren to watch]

[1350–1400; Middle English (Scots) glowren to glower; akin to Middle Low German glūren to be overcast, Middle Dutch gloeren to leer]

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

For your listening and dancing pleasure, a selection of waltzes from last week's (March 29) Bored of Works meeting.

Once again we're reminded that even though it is to be a "greenway" for walkers and bicyclists, there'll be some manner of "limited" automotive access, perhaps akin to the Spring Street Interstate, and to make room for a roadway necessary for cars, even if narrowed, we'll have to remove 109 trees.

And in removing 109 healthy trees, we'll have to do it right now --STAT -- without asking Mr. Naps' permission, because if not, the bats will begin nesting.

Now, we might actually go to the tree board, and we might consult the arborist, but since the project was approved a long time ago, what possible good would that do?

Can someone explain why there even is such a thing as a tree board if it isn't to be informed of such matters?

Of course, we must inform Mr. Naps first -- then the tree board. After all, the tree board never served as Democratic Party chairman.

Rosenbarger's last brilliant road calming success was the catastrophic (for the street) Main Street Beautification Project, which runs past his house, ruins the roadway, and yet enhances his own property values. He casually reveals that yes, the Greenway route for humans will be open for cars, and we'll put a few pull-overs in to help keep things calm -- nudge nudge, wink wink.

It's how you keep your job, long after the thrill of performance is gone.

Finally, worn down by minutes of ineffectual questioning, Rosenbarger speaks something approximating actual truth. He'd have informed the board sooner about the need to clear-cut those 109 trees, but then things dragged too far along owing to his department's historic, sloth-like vigor, at which point it became necessary to move very quickly ... to capture the money.

And you wonder why 5th Street was paved (gotcha, overpaid lawyer) before being destroyed by Break Wind construction.

Heck, boy, we'd have lost the money -- and how the hell is the paver going to kick back some campaign finance if he doesn't pave?

Then, there's the (now) bald knob behind the church on State Street.

Ever the straight man, Mr. Naps asks: Are they allowed to cut like that?

Planning Department replies: We'll have to check on it.

If they're not allowed, I'd like to see Rosenbarger on a tractor, reattaching all the trees that already have been cut, like toothpicks protruding from a long overdue forced retirement cake.

Fourth Estate, meet Eastside Christian. Move along. Nothing to see here.

I never thought I'd say this, but if Padgett could hoist Eastside's building and move it  into New Albany city limits ...

Last evening following the city council meeting, a friend suggested that one way to minimize the the hospital's effects on city infrastructure, i.e., as a non-profit paying no property taxes and thus not contributing to the cost of city services, would be to have unified city-county government.

This article explains why I disagree with my friend's position.

How Long Before Regionalization Is Rebranded as a Suburban Bailout?

MARCH 29, 2016 BY AARON M. RENN

Back in January Strong Towns ran a great piece by Nathaniel Hood called “This isn’t an annexation – it’s a bailout.”  It’s a short story about a town in Minnesota that’s about to annex a small 1960’s subdivision that somehow remained in incorporated territory for many years.

City council tonight: Blessings in a Backpack, Floyd Memorial sale, and CM Blair making love to a spreadsheet.

As we await Bob Caesar's compliance with my earnest request to produce records documenting Bicentennial 2013 accounts (it's now up to 355 days, Bob), there is a city council meeting tonight, and we can only hope that my hired dervish attends and whirls the invocation.

As a prelude, a note to Vicky Glotzbach: You may not be aware that at your city clerk's web zone, the most recent set of downloadable city council minutes is from March 2, 2015. All the rest after this date yield a "no results found" message when clicked.

My reason for wanting to read the minutes from late 2015 is that I thought former at-large councilwoman Shirley Baird's final substantive act on council was to gain approval of funding for Blessings in a Backpack. The organization itself mentions it here:

At the November 5th New Albany City Council meeting, volunteers from Blessings in a Backpack of Floyd County, Stephanie Watson, Cathleen Palmer and Kevin Beam expressed our gratitude to the Council for having committed to donate $35,000 towards our funding needs for the 2015-2016 school year.

However, funding for Blessings in a Backpack funding appears yet again at tonight's confab, this time offered by Greg Phipps.

What are the criteria for evaluating and determining the use of public funds for such causes? Perhaps we'll learn more tonight.

5th district councilman Matt Nash also offers a resolution on the non-transparency of the Floyd Memorial hospital transaction.

 

Nash is right, but just imagine the same standards of transparency as applied to the mayor and Mr. Disney's ruling party. That'd be genuinely revolutionary, although Lee Hamilton probably wouldn't notice.

Here's the meeting agenda. Caress your flasks, and requisite apologies for the minimalism of iPhone screenshots. I'll be live tweeting from 7:00 p.m., because cooking school!

Cocoons and page views: A letter to the blog.

A reader writes.

I just saw your post on the top ten articles on the blog last month. I think it says something sad that an ancient burial ground takes a back seat to Adrienne & Company. I think I understand how and why the election turned out the way it did; NA residents really, actually, don't care about what is going on around them. They live in a cocoon and don't want to be bothered. Wow! Is that sad.

Thanks for reading.  It's always pleasant to encounter literate and informed opinion, as opposed to the city-sponsored account that parodies the senior editor at Twitter.

It's true that posts about food and drink occupy perhaps 17 or 18 of the top 20 on the list of all-time, most-read posts. I believe this reveals a keen interest in one aspect of localism, if a bit too narrow for my own interests. I haven't forgotten that only 27% (if that) of the city's registered voters declared a preference in 2015. and it's depressing.

However, looking at March blog statistics another way, blog readership was up nicely overall. Many of the local, topical posts dealing with matters other than food and drink had 20-25% higher numbers. There's a steady trickle of blog "likes" at Fb.

It's very encouraging, and while I will continue to maintain that our community's interests would be better served in the long term by the newspaper honoring its Tribune component equally with its News, and recalling what Fourth Estate really means, the ongoing absence of a city beat reporter in New Albany obviously is contributing to greater blog traffic.

So be it, and in closing, thanks to those readers who throw tips and observations this way. I follow up on as many as I can; it's largely just me, after all. I do what I can, as I'm able.

Thanks again for reading.

"Ideas worth stealing: Parking benefit districts."

Or, we could institute sidewalk double parking.

Each month downtown merchants gather, and parking is always a topic of conversation. The odd part is that we haven't much of a parking problem, apart from business owners and their employees monopolizing curbside spaces that should turn over according to demand from all users.

Consequently, it comes down to one of three potential "solutions."

• Merchants police themselves.
• The city policies the spaces by enforcing its own code.
• We use parking meters to regulate turnover.

Yet again, there seem to be any number of opinions, but little will to examine underlying realities as a means of understanding the issue.

I'd encourage all downtown stakeholders to at least familiarize themselves with the potential usefulness of a parking benefit district, as described here (and on numerous previous occasions).

The most important thing to remember is that this or any other City Hall will take no action unless "encouraged" to do so. Political entities prefer the status quo, and the votes they know. Unity and collective will can influence this situation.

Ideas worth stealing: Parking benefit districts, by Jon Geeting (Keystone Crossroads)

As UCLA professor Donald Shoup explained in his cult parking economics tome "The High Cost of Free Parking," some cities and downtown business associations have discovered that it's much easier, politically speaking, to introduce new parking meters or permits when the impacted areas are allowed to keep some of the revenue generated within the neighborhood to pay for extra public improvements and services.

The prospect of a dedicated, ongoing local revenue stream for neighborhood projects becomes enticing enough to residents and businesses, and they become a countervailing force in support of parking meters.

Those public improvements in turn attract even more visitors, which generates more parking revenue in a virtuous cycle of redevelopment.

In different cities, Parking Benefit Districts (PBDs) come in different shapes and sizes, but what they all have in common is that they fund visible local public improvements in the places where the revenue is raised.

Infrastructure is "the foundation for our economy, for our social and cultural life."

It's been nearly 13 years since we moved downtown, and during that time the refrain most often heard goes something like this:

"Can't we make this (fill in blank) look better?"

Hence, constant discussions about beautification, clean-ups, porch appliances and facades, and almost no consideration of fundamental reality, i.e., how did it get to be (not look) that way in the first place -- and how much of objectionable appearance is quantifiable versus subjective?

If "physical manifestation of our preferred lifestyle" goes no further than theme parks and a coat of paint on a dilapidated building, I'm not sure it can be termed progress. Yet that's the way it's constantly phrased.

Does the local leadership class merely parrot these phrases out of  failed consciousness, or does it do so owing to resignation that nothing substantive can be done, hence the importance of grotesque "ooh, that's nice" Potemkin villages designed by Oz and Mr. Disney?

I don't know the answer. All I know is that quite a lot of evidence points to matters like streets as basic determinants of these fundamentals, and yet fixing them is the very last thing we'll do, if at all. That's either intellectual atrophy, moral cowardice, or both.

But it's the local political default.

Building Infrastructure for More Inclusive Communities: A conversation with Ryan Gravel, creator of the Atlanta BeltLine, on his new book Where We Want to Live, by Richard Florida (City Lab)

Your book touches on a critical aspect of city planning that is often overshadowed. In addition to important considerations like income, education, and public works, you argue that what city residents really want is “infra-culture,” or “the physical manifestation of our preferred lifestyle.” What does this infra-culture look like in our current and future cities?

I try to make the case that infrastructure is not only a tool for moving people, water, or information around. It’s the foundation for our economy, for our social and cultural life. It matters what kind of infrastructure we build. It affects how we live our lives. Instead of addressing culture—or even our local economy—directly, too much of our dialogue about city planning today revolves around large, abstract concepts. People have a hard time translating how they affect their day-to-day lives. Perhaps out of sheer frustration, however, that’s changing. In every city I go to, people are reclaiming obsolete infrastructure—from old railroads to degraded waterways and obsolete roadways—as new conduits for urban life. When these efforts embrace a broad, inclusive vision for what this infrastructure might mean for their lives, they are tapping into the real opportunity for infra-culture.

A timely reminder about the influence of Jared Diamond.

Guns, Germs and Steel may be Jared Diamond's signature achievement, but for unknown reasons, Collapse affected me more deeply. Both are due for rereading. So much to learn, so little time.

INFLUENCES: JARED DIAMOND, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

... A couple of years before the housing crisis, I came across his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, which taught me again how to think systematically about places, people and societies. The mental image of the Norse Greenlanders, too stuck in the hierarchy of their culture to consider changes necessary to their survival, refusing to eat seal or fish and perishing from starvation while the Inuit, living in parallel, demonstrated a viable way to survive, was powerful. To think of the Eastern Islanders tearing, down every tree on their island (growth at all costs) until they could not even build a boat to leave when the society -- tens of thousands -- descended into starvation and cannibalism cutting their numbers to a few hundred, is chilling. These case studies are powerful because we're the same people with the same motivations and likely to make the same rationalizations until it is too late.

If Lee Hamilton's point about the secrecy of public officials is valid, he may wish to reconsider last year's Gahan for Mayor endorsement.

As a friend pointed out on Facebook ...

What a timely article considering the County narrowed down offers for the hospital sale from over a dozen down to one, all in secret without public meetings, and seemingly in violation of open door laws.

All this and Team Gahan too; luckily, we have a Fourth Estate watch ... dog ... er, never mind.

Cooking school!

HAMILTON: There's too much secrecy in government, by Lee Hamilton (This Is Jeffersonville)

We have a secrecy problem. This may seem odd to say during an era in which the most intimate details of individuals’ lives are on display. Yet government is moving behind closed doors, and this is definitely the wrong direction.

In fact, I’m dismayed by how often public officials fight not to do the public’s business in public. And I’m not just talking about the federal government.

From 04/29/15, at NA Confidential, some background.

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Just wait until Lee Hamilton sees the credit card bill.

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.
-- Lee Hamilton

Jeff Gahan's latest mass mailer touts the mayoral candidate's endorsement by much beloved former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton. On the front, there is a Hamilton quote: "Leaders make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

He probably meant to say "TIF bonds make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

The implication is that Hamilton's quote refers to Gahan, but before we come back to that, let's look at an a ready illustration of the way that desperation and circular logic can invade the lives of sycophants, one of whom promptly offered this interpretation:

When Lee Hamilton speaks well of your leadership, you know you've done something right.

Which is to say, if you belong to the same political party as a former congressman and he endorses you, then you're doing something right -- something like belonging to the same political party as a former congressman ... and so on.

My first thought upon glimpsing the mailer was skepticism. Given Team Gahan's ongoing disregard for transparency and intellectual honesty, were Hamilton's actual words of endorsement to be found anywhere in the mailer? Was the quote on the front intended to apply specifically to Gahan?

In fact, Hamilton's letter of endorsement is to be found on Gahan's campaign page at Facebook, because a politician like the incumbent can be relied upon for transparency only when it involves praise and adulation.

Unfortunately, the letter is boilerplate partisanship, with interchangeable bullet points. To reference just one of them, Hamilton praises Gahan for investing "significant sums" into "aging infrastructure, including the Main Street project, "which added needed improvements to New Albany's historic district."

Uh huh.

And the Hamilton quote on the front of the mailer? It isn't to be found in the letter, although reference is made to Gahan's ability to make things "happen," which sounds suspiciously like an advertisement for a credit card.

And it is.

Finally, some love for Karl-Marx-Allee: "Berlin's Best Street Is a Communist-Era Boulevard."

(Wikipedia)

We've all had experiences that define us, whether for better or worse. They generate instant snapshots in the memory.

Regular blog readers know that my summer of '89 in the East Bloc generated powerful ghosts that remain with me to this very day. For three months that year, I was in Czechoslovakia, the USSR, Poland, Hungary and East Germany.

Most of August was spent working for the East Berlin Parks Department, buffing and polishing V. I. Lenin’s shoes, as attached to a gargantuan statue of the Soviet Union's founder, standing prominently at the entrance to the Volkspark Friedrichshain.

It has since been removed.

The ultimate objective of my voluntarily proffered shoeshine -- and tree planting, and landscaping -- was to make things look tidy and respectable in the Volkspark, which was cleverly reclaimed atop mounds of bombed-out rubble from World War II, and served afterward as the front yard for a hospital that often disgorged armless and legless pensioners into the summer sun for their afternoon constitutionals.

The whole story is here:

Pilsner, Putin and Me (Part One).
Pilsner, Putin and Me (Part Two).
Pilsner, Putin and Me (Part Three).
Pilsner, Putin and Me (Part Four).

The volunteers, both East German students and foreigners, lived together in a military-issue tent camp. The various groups were expected to commute to job sites by public transport, which wasn't difficult, but on the first day, my unit was met at the camp by a work vehicle.

It was the East German equivalent of a heavy-duty pickup truck, and we all hopped into the back, to be driven to orientation at the Volkspark prior to being handed our shovels.

In front with the driver was the park's reigning Communist party functionary, an older man with ludicrous hair dyed jet black. His orientation lecture about the importance of labor was openly mocked by the East German student assigned to translate his utterances. After all, the functionary couldn’t speak a word of English. Years later, it was revealed to me that the translator was a Stasi informer.

Back to those defining experiences.

We were in the back of the truck on a beautiful, warm August day, and turned onto a ridiculously wide boulevard with hardly any traffic. It was Karl-Marx-Allee, and I'll never forget the the feeling of passing through the shadows of the over-sized apartment tower blocks, built during the period just after the war, before building techniques devolved into mass shoddiness.

Surely the chosen route was intentional. It showed off the best that the DDR had to offer. A quarter century later, I returned and talked the missus into accompanying me. It was a moving experience, confronting those ghosts.

2014 Euro Reunion Tour, Day 4: To Leninplatz and the Imbiss, 25 years later.

Bizarrely, Karl-Marx-Allee is garnering belated recognition. It doesn't excuse the many and varied abuses of the system that produced it, although once again, it becomes apparent to us that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Berlin's Best Street Is a Communist-Era Boulevard, Says a Leading Architect, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

What Berlin needs to thrive is more communist-style development. That’s the verdict pronounced by one of Germany’s leading architects this week. Writing in the newspaper Tagesspiegel, Hans Kollhof (responsible for many of the new buildings at Berlin’s central Postdamer Platz) says that Berlin needs a “new Karl-Marx-Allee,” referring to the monumental Stalin-era avenue carved through ruined East Berlin in the early 1950s. Nothing Berlin has built since, Kollhof insists, comes close to its quality, against which today’s constructions measure up very poorly indeed.

“What now comes as luxury in German city centers turns out to be uptight, prettified project housing. Hidden behind a tired packaging of science fiction motifs or Styrofoam classicism…[by contrast] Karl-Marx-Allee is the only example of German urban planning and architecture that continues the great tradition of the 19th century, that needn’t shy away from comparisons with American and other European cities.”

Sunday thinking: "Islamic Extremism Is Not the Root Cause of Europe’s Terror Problem."

The problem is “not the radicalization of Islam, but the Islamization of radicalism.”
-- Olivier Roy

In America, we have BOTH kinds of glib explanation: Black or White. Perhaps the only reason I continue to link to articles like this one is the entertainment value of being called out by local "Christians," who advise me that it doesn't matter -- just kill 'em all, and let the Christian "god" sort it out.

Islamic Extremism Is Not the Root Cause of Europe’s Terror Problem; European elites have a “youth revolt” on their hands, by Joshua Holland (The Nation)

 ... There’s a lot of focus on radical theology, and not enough on the conditions that allow it to take hold. European law enforcement, says Ahmed, “are analyzing this through the prism of theology. They’re studying the Koran for explanations, but what we’re seeing is nothing more than disaffected, disenchanted, illiterate young people who are not adjusting to society. Look at these young idiots who are blowing things up—they’re looking at ISIS videos with a beer in one hand and a joint in the other.”

Utica: "Caught in the path of an approaching juggernaut being driven by everyone else's development goals."

Perhaps "told ya so" isn't the most diplomatic utterance.

It's surprising that N and T's platoon of Clark County reporters missed this story. Perhaps they were at Eastside, rolling out the folding chairs for Cooking School.

Utica leader on bridge: 'Our town's destroyed', by Lexy Gross (Courier-Journal)

When the East End bridge project began in 2012, the top elected official of Utica, Ind., was "thrilled to death" for the span that would connect his town of 800 to Prospect, Ky.

Those dreams of economic development and growth now seem far-fetched, said Utica Council President Steve Long as he sat in the town's community center, his truck parked out back with fresh bread in the backseat awaiting delivery.

"Our town's destroyed," he said. "... I know construction takes time and makes a mess, but you reap the benefits. Utica is not reaping the benefits."

Top Ten posts at NA Confidential for March, 2016.

Number One, going away.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we annoyingly burrow beneath the headlines to offer unique local perspectives. March was a gratifying month in terms of traffic, and the posts highlighted here attest to a keen interest for local stories.

Perhaps this interest is not being served elsewhere.

The March Top Ten is determined by numbers of unique hits, as reported by Blogger. The list begins with fifteen "honorable mention" posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1.

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15 HONORABLE MENTION

216

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

217

Book events: "100 Things to Do in Louisville Before You Die," by Kevin Gibson, at Destinations Booksellers on Thursday, March 10.

224

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

240

Photo essay: Which one's a heavy truck, Warren?

243

Dear Bill Hanson: Put down that colander, give NA some equality, or just change the damn name back to Evening News.

244

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

254

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.

258

I didn't get arrested, but I've got a new title.

263

Smokin' on the River: "Fortunately for us, New Albany's a forward-thinking town, and they want to take it on."

272 (tie)

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

272 (tie)

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

279

The complete PDF: "Ordinance Adopting Chapter 160: Rental Property Code," for your reading pleasure.

285

Do something fast, or else he'll start drawing up plays.

290

Analysis: Gahan and the rental ordinance, or the emasculation of the once-powerful Oz.

295

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

308

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

TOP TEN

318

In case you were wondering how much it costs for the city to hire quality bands ... it's $10K

366

Dear Shawnee Baptist Church: Want to do something for my neighborhood? Start by not littering it. Thank you.

374

All about Sojourn New Albany's Empowerment Seminar, coming on Saturday, March 19.

392

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

413

Steve Coomes on Brooklyn and The Butcher: "A steakhouse sans the stereotypical pretension."

439

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

515

Chef David Clancy will be manning the kitchen at H.M. Frank's, the O'Shea's Public House opening soon in Jeffersonville.

574

Why does Team Gahan always pee on pedestrians?

839

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.

2,025

FLASH: Adrienne & Company is open at 133 E. Market.

Have a look at Vinod Gupta's Discounted IN Properties.

Earlier in March, the newspaper reported the redevelopment commissions's Lancaster's deal.

NEW ALBANY — After sitting vacant, blighted and vandalized for years, New Albany’s Redevelopment Commission approved the purchase of all six parcels of the former Tommy Lancaster restaurant at 1629 E. Market St.

This week, the commission approved the purchase of the parcels — which included the building and the area around it — for $78,840.

It turns out that the Floridian seller, Vinod Gupta, is a big-time dealer in "discounted" properties (thanks to T for the link).

Vinod Gupta's Discounted IN Properties

Discounted Indiana Properties provides homes, land, or investment property throughout the state of Indiana. Discounted Indiana Properties provides contracts for those who are want to invest but looking for alternative financing options.

The owner, Vinod Gupta, has been investing in properties for over 20 years and has found a way to provide a product for those individuals who are looking for alternative financing solutions when purchasing investment properties, a new home, or recreational property.

Prices are subject to change at any time due to improvements. All homes are purchased in bulk and the owner (Vinod Gupta) has never lived in the property and all parcels are sold "as is" and all inspections, surveys, appraisals or title search are at the expense of the buyer. No property is warranted and all properties are offered as a Quit Claim Deed only unless expressly written and agreed between owner Vinod Gupta and buyer.

Vinod Gupta is not a bank or financial institution and does not claim to provide the services of such. Vinod Gupta offers homes at 10 % down with 12% interest and no prepayment penalty.

It makes one wonder if Gupta's customary sales routine was modified to suit a municipal buyer. What's next for Gupta Land?

We cringed and had a look:

Coming soon: The Gupta Vincennes Revitalization Project, built to Caesar-surface glam standards.

Coming soon: The Gupta Vincennes Revitalization Project, built to Caesar-surface glam standards.

Folks near Vincennes have been talking about this for months. From September 23, 2015:

Birdseye, here we come: Is Vincennes Street to be the next victim of non-Speck "beautification"?

Now this.

New Albany purchases former Tommy Lancaster's property, by Jerod Clapp (Cooking School at Church)

NEW ALBANY — After sitting vacant, blighted and vandalized for years, New Albany’s Redevelopment Commission approved the purchase of all six parcels of the former Tommy Lancaster restaurant at 1629 E. Market St.

This week, the commission approved the purchase of the parcels — which included the building and the area around it — for $78,840.

From the mouths of the clueless comes drollery, and accordingly, Bob Caesar echoes time-honored conventional wisdom: We needn't interfere with fundamental reality, just hurry and make it LOOK better, so as not to weigh on the orderly sensibilities of suburbanites.

“It’s another small effort to clean up some blighted areas. That whole corner of Market and Vincennes has looked bad for a long number years,” Caesar said. “John Neace [a real estate investor] cleaned up the other side of that road and made it presentable, and other investors have put money into Vincennes Street and have been successful.

“I think if we could acquire all of that, it would be a real asset for the city.”

Meanwhile, Vinod Gupta, who lives in Florida, made out like a bandit, tripling his money for six years of do-nothingness. Gupta owns 45 properties in Floyd County, and no doubt hopes the likes of Caesar convinces the city to overpay him for those, too -- I mean, we simply must make the squalor LOOK better, mustn't we?

The eGIS map excerpts below show Gupta's parcels near (and including) the former Lancaster's.

The corner property at King and Vincennes is vacant but has an owner (who also owns the former Graf Dodge building), and Market Boy still controls its building and the corner parking lot on Market & Vincennes.

Imagine the subliminal messages Market Boy sends Caesar. He probably can't sleep after those rare occasions of venturing into Uptown.

A few weeks ago on a miserable, overcast day, I took a few photos of the area. Note that the dilapidated blue house is not a Gupta property, and has been cited by David Brewer's office. It appears to be empty, but you might recognize it from the mayor's press release belatedly touting rental property registration and enforcement.

Previous rumors suggested the city's interest in commercial development in this area. Now the whispers hint at more painted ladies.

Hurry: Four of Jeff Gahan's delightful gingerbread houses in Midtown remain up for grabs.

It's worth remembering that two huge factors invariably go unmentioned in periodic discussions about the Vincennes corridor.

First, echoing the Speck study, Vincennes Street is ridiculously configured given the traffic it carries. More importantly, the future disposition of one-way Spring and Market streets is critical for any revitalization plan slated for Gupta Land. To keep these streets as they are is to reduce the value of any investments made there.

With the stalwarts of Team Gahan as yet funneling streets engineering cash to the company Duggins' wife works for (was it a competitive bid, Warren?), positing changes to the vacant lots is putting carts before horses. In short: Just like always.

Second, there's the reality mentioned more than once in these pages, namely that the Vincennes corridor's degradation began on the day after the railroad closed the K & I auto lanes, circa 1979. In the modern paradigm, the best conceivable revitalization strategy for this area is a K & I reopened to walkers and bicyclists; the needed private investment would soon follow, without the low comedy of Team Gahan serving as property consultants and developers.

Unfortunately, the K & I gambit is a long shot.

My guess? Main Street-style beautification for Vincennes, which ignores complete street basics; half-ass (or no-ass) "calming" on market and Spring, also serving no useful ultimate purpose; garish painted ladies in a row; and a cheap strip mall with a nail salon and payday loan operation.

Caesar will be delighted: See how nice it looks now?

Taste of Home? "The Death of Jeffrey Pendleton."

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.
-- Henry Anatole Grunwald

But cooking school.

The Death of Jeffrey Pendleton, by Brentin Mock (City Lab)

Jeffrey Pendleton was found dead in a jail cell in Manchester, New Hampshire, on March 13. His death can be chalked up to a number of issues: the paradox of overbearing yet negligent policing, America’s addiction to criminalizing the poor and homeless, the uninhabitable conditions of local jails, and how cities make bank from those paradoxes, bigotries and conditions. His death also illuminates how the ridiculously paltry wages inside the food-service sector leave its workers vulnerable to the predatory nature of these factors.

It would be great if we could say that these issues represent the worst of how cities run; instead, we know that they are embedded in the essential functions of the civic ecosystem. People like Pendleton are not residents in these systems, they are the victims of it.

Know that "traffic calming will occur prior to the tolls," just don't mention in which direction.

Much to my surprise, earlier tonight I came tantalizingly very close to having an actual policy conversation with a City Hall operative.

It seems that City Hall is hiring a Right-of-Way Coordinator.

This position administers the City's Right-of-Way Management System, including authorizing and overseeing all construction or maintenance activities in the City's public streets, right-of-ways, or potential developed right-of-way within new developments, under the provisions of the City's right-of-way requirements and ordinance of Infrastructure Standards.

Naturally, any mention of "right-of-way" immediately brings to mind New Albany's "wrong-of-one-way" streets, and so I asked a logical question -- and it was answered.

Jeeebus ... did glasnost and perestroika break out and no one told me? Here's how it went down.

Roger Baylor
Is the two-way street coordinator position being posted?

City Hall operative
The options are being engineered and costs determined. No coordinator needed.

RB
Is it still projected that nothing will occur until after the start of bridge tolls?

CHO
Traffic calming will occur prior to the tolls.

RB
One-way or two-way traffic calming?

CHO

Shrug.

Close but no cigar. You can't blame a guy for trying to squeeze facts out of City Hall, since the newspaper has no intention of doing it, and I understand how hard it must be to live in constant fear of losing one's job for telling the truth.

So, I'll say just this: Mayor Jeff Gahan is going to botch the two-way street dream. It's going to be an historic choke, composed of equal parts incomprehension, butchery, mockery and farce, and when the mayor finally and officially flushes Speck's plan down the commode, there'll be stinky dripping rotten egg on the faces of those who've continued to insist that he can be trusted.

They'll throw their arms up and lament: "But what could I have done?"

Not much.

Maybe take a stand, lead, agitate, educate, put your ass on the line, push back, have a spine and tell it like it is, but apart from those, no, I can't think of a single thing.

Hurry: Four of Jeff Gahan's delightful gingerbread houses in Midtown remain up for grabs.

2 for 6 in 7 months.

Midtown Renaissance: It depends on what you mean by "painted lady."

The Green Mouse was told that the city would like to see more houses like these built on the Vinod Gupta properties it is acquiring on Market (Lancaster's) and nearby King Street.

But will the feds pay for this round of balsa and prayers?

Wouldn't you love to know the scope of the plan before the congratulatory press release, typically issued AFTER the project is complete?

Podcast: Bill Simmons and Keith Olbermann.

An hour and twenty minute podcast, and time well spent.

On the political side, Olbermann's comments about the American "tradition" of compromise are spot on. He also laments the Balkanization of sports -- and the very fact that this term was used tells you much about why I'm an Olbermann fan.

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons welcomes Keith Olbermann to discuss "the never-ending state of stupidity" in politics, learning to compromise in America (19:30), the impact of social media on cable news (25:00), baseball’s future (32:30), Pedro's peak All-Star Game performance (42:40), how to fix 'SportsCenter' (54:15), and modern sports news (1:00:00).

The scarecrow's Nawbany lament, revisited: "More Before-and-After Photos of the World's Best Street Designs."

Photo credit: City Lab.

We've been here before. From NAC, September 18, 2015: The Scarecrow's Lament: If New Albany only had a brain ...

There are times when it's very difficult to read articles like this one, and view scenes like a refurbished street in Antwerp (above), knowing that automobiles continue to be the sole determining factor of everything we do. But that's okay. We'll just keep pushing on.

City Hall's inability to comprehend walkability solutions at the intersection of Main and W. 1st illustrates Jeff Gahan's walkability gap. It's that Rorschach test all over again: Show Gahan one of the photo sets in these City Lab articles, and all he sees is a Disney castle -- and a campaign finance revenue stream.

More Before-and-After Photos of the World's Best Street Designs, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Across the world, street design that favors automobiles and ignores pedestrians and cyclists is being rethought. A newly updated resource created by the Brazilian urban design collective Urb-i allows you to chart just how widespread and profound the changes are.

Distrust of atheists: "Deeply and culturally ingrained."

According to the studies, atheists like me distrust each other, too. If true, I'm not sure this isn't a clear-headed place to be all of the time, rather than one reflecting personal views of imagined deities.

"Trust" itself might be the topic of another whole study. In the interim, meet the research.  

Anti-atheist distrust ‘deeply and culturally ingrained’, study finds, by Peter Yeung (The Independent)

... "Looking to the future, it is also important to explore how these perceptions and attitudes toward atheists manifest behaviourally, whether people act on these prejudices and in what contexts. It is only once the nature and extent of the issue is better understood that we can take measures to address it."

A study by the University of Cambridge last month discovered that, contrary to popular belief, vast swathes of the ancient world did not believe in Gods.