High noon: Resolutions, vetoes and the New Albany tradition of conflict enhancement.

There’s nothing at all inappropriate about the timing. On the hottest day of the year, certain politically temperamental thermostats at the City-County Building are set for certain intemperate global warming:

New Albany mayor vetoes sewer ruling; Panel planned suit in contract dispute, by Dick Kaukas (The Courier-Journal).

Less than 24 hours after the New Albany City Council voted to file lawsuits to challenge the validity of two no-bid contracts, Mayor James Garner vetoed the resolution.

What the future holds for New Albany’s leading index of governmental dysfunction is by no means clear, but the C-J’s reporter Kaukas has earned our eternal gratitude for revealing an all-time, bar-none, classic King Larry Kochert moment:

Kochert yesterday accused some council members who object to the contracts of engaging in "political grandstanding" before the November election.

"They had been acting like lapdogs, and now they want to look like watchdogs," Kochert said.

That’s breathtaking. No single pot ever accused an accompanying kettle of blackness to such a sweeping degree. Thanks, Dick, for catching that one. You made our year.

A special meeting of the Redevelopment Commission on Tuesday, July 14.

The following edited version of a piece previously published late last night when my consumption of restorative, progressive pints precluded fact checking, comes to you in altered form thanks to an alert reader, who graciously informed me of a factual error. I have nothing to say in my defense, save that when it comes to distinguishing between conjoined Luddite councilmen, I sometimes find myself utterly unable to discern, and question whether it really matters.

To be more specific, and as it pertains to the city of New Albany, if the Redevelopment Commission must include two council representatives, is there any difference between the 1st district’s Dan Coffey and the 3rd’s Steve Price occupying one of the two obstructionist chairs?

The press release below is about Scribner Place Phase II feasibility. Throughout the process of initiating the current phase, which includes a YMCA and swimming facility, CM Coffey continually vowed to self-immolate on the steps of the City-County Building rather than permit local government to improve prospects for the Wizard of Westside’s own fiefdom – then, lacking modern spark-making technology, failed to follow through with the projected fireball owing to the time required to rub two sticks together.

(There – found a way to include that section, anyway. Hah.)


Phase II presumably will stretch eastward, into CM Price’s realm, and he can be expected to oppose any potential council district upgrade just as vociferously as Coffey. I say that either of them being associated with any manifestation of “redevelopment” is the sort of ironic, cosmic and cataclysmic guffaw that the master of the universe routinely issues to residents of the city of New Albany to incite (as opposed to insight) the consumption of more Big Bufords.

Oh, well. Not to intentionally mimic the random legal document generator pioneered by the fraudulent Erika over at Freedom to Screech (Yellow), here’s the official notice as provided by the Redevelopment Commission:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN for the following New Albany Redevelopment Commission Special Meeting to be held on:

Tuesday, August 14, 2007
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
New Albany Floyd-County Public Library Auditorium

RE: Scribner Phase II Feasibility Study Findings Presentation

The meeting will include a presentation by Browning Investments, Inc. regarding the Scribner Place Phase II feasibility study.

Dated this 24th Day of July 2007.

New Albany Redevelopment Commission

John Rosenbarger, Director

What did you do in the war, daddy?

I would have preferred a Tribune link, but ... the C-J is first past the post.

New Albany to investigate validity of no-bid contracts, by Dick Kaukas (The Courier-Journal).

The New Albany City Council last night authorized legal action to determine if two no-bid contracts, one for $3.3 million a year to run the sewer system and the other for $507,000 annually for storm drainage operations, are valid ...

... The resolution passed last night authorized a suit to be filed in Floyd Circuit Court, asking a judge to give a "declaratory judgment" and determine the validity of the contracts.

The vote was 5-3 with one abstention.

Those in favor were Dan Coffey, Steve Price, Beverly Crump, Jeff Gahan and Donnie Blevins.

Opposed were Jack Messer, Kevin Zurschmiede and Larry Kochert. Zurschmiede and Kochert also are on the five-member sewer board that voted without dissent to award the contract to EMC on July 3.

Bill Schmidt, the council's ninth member, abstained from voting after saying that many people had told him EMC was "doing a good job."

That's another in a long series of strange abstentions, and one issued for precisely the same muddled reasons that impelled the council president Kochert to defend the body’s chronic failure to redistrict on grounds that so long as the blessedly lame duck Schmidt continues to do a “good job” in his indefensibly bloated district, overarching legalities need not be observed.

It seems to me that whatever one’s position on the efficiency with which EMC is doing its job, the legal issue at hand has nothing to do with the strength of the company’s performance. Rather, it has to do with whether such a no-bid contract as that awarded EMC is in fact permissible.

And what better way to fritter away more time that we can’t afford to waste than by assigning teams of lawyers the task of cleaning up after public servants on all sides who’ve consistently avoided communicating with each other?

Indeed, now more than ever, New Albany is a state of mind.

But why?

Must reads, strange bedfellows and the continuing saga of city council Monday.

Required reading of a non-political nature, all of which surfaced during a sultry high summer’s weekend:

Downtown Saturday: Everything’s waiting for you in New Albany (Harold J. Adams; Courier-Journal)

Thirty New Albany merchants joined yesterday in the launch of an effort to bring weekend crowds back to the city's downtown area with the first monthly "Downtown Saturday."

“Downtown Saturdays” organizers Curt and Pam Peters had this to say about the inaugural effort in a Sunday e-mail:

Thanks to everyone for your work on the first Downtown Saturday. Many good things happened, and it will only get better. We stopped by at over half of the Downtown Saturday merchants, and almost all said that they had increased traffic. We had 72 visitors at the Gallery on Pearl - by far the best Saturday we have had since we opened. We can meet Tuesday, August 14, between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. at the Speakeasy on State Street (in their large room) to share comments and suggestions. Our next Downtown Saturday will be Sept. 1. Please invite additional merchants to participate and to come on August 14 if possible. Best wishes to all and thanks to everyone.

Meanwhile, it is axiomatic that New Albany must be smarter to succeed. Here’s one way that the city will defy the Luddite limitations imposed by its no-progress-at-any-Steve-Price faction:

Students, staff await Purdue campus in New Albany (Dale Moss; Courier-Journal)

Purdue is building on one of the best corners in New Albany. But the project is not what you might figure. It won't be Purdue University Southeast, like nearby Indiana University Southeast.

Following is another stellar contribution from a youthful local “guest columnist,” whose essays have been so good that it makes us wonder why our local newspaper doesn’t have its own regular columnist:

ROBISON: A better New Albany (Daniel Robison; Tribune)

With some time off before school beckons again, I decided to take a backseat spot in a car headed to Colorado last week. Not only did I welcome spending some time away from New Albany, I particularly wanted to compare how our community measures up with others I encountered along the way.

But regrettably, now it is time for NAC’s twice monthly John Entwistle Memorial “Fiddle About” city council meeting preview, today prefaced by these local press hors d’oeuvres:

No-bid contracts split council; New Albany debates 2 agreements’ validity (Dick Kaukas; Courier-Journal)

Members of the New Albany City Council will be asked … to authorize litigation to determine if a $3.3 million, no-bid contract awarded by the sewer board and another for $507,000 awarded by the storm water board are valid.

Both contracts went to Environmental Management Corp., the company that has operated the New Albany sewers since 2001.

The issue of whether bids should have been sought for the contracts has split the council.

And, closer to home …

Court challenge faces New Albany City Council vote (Eric Scott Campbell; Tribune)

Quite frankly, we’re at a loss to explain why the council’s factions have lately realigned in such an inexplicable manner, with progressive stalwarts like Jeff Gahan combining with arch-reactionaries like Dan Coffey to make us scratch our heads in ever-escalating wonderment, but such is the climate as the fall campaign season approaches.

A few days ago, at-large Republican councilman Kevin Zurschmiede circulated the following statement via e-mail to neighborhood associations, constituents and others on his contacts list:

Hello,

As your City Council Representative I am asking that all concerned citizens of New Albany come to the next City Council meeting.

It will be Monday August 6th at 7:30.

Some members of the Council are bringing forth a resolution that will essentially become the initial steps for an increase to our Sewer Bills.

The resolution calls for spending unlimited tax payers dollars towards hiring an attorney to determine the validity of two recently signed contracts between the city's Storm Water Board and the city's Sewer Utility.

I am tired of our citizens finding out after the fact that their tax dollars have gone to waste on frivolous law suits and attorney expenses.

I would like to see as many folks turn out at this meeting as possible.
Please pass this information on to your friends, neighbors, and families and please come to the meeting and voice your concerns to the City Council.

I am thanking you in advance for passing along this information and attending the meeting.

Sincerely,

KEVIN W ZURSCHMIEDE

NAC’s senior editor has a prior obligation to entertain an out-of-town guest and will be unable to attend the melee, err, meeting, but it is hoped that we’ll have someone in attendance to provide coverage of the session.

Good luck, good luck … whomever you are.

REWIND: Imagination Atrophy Syndrome, downtown churches, the "right facilities," and the "wrong" developer.

Last week I was part of a conversation between two fellow “improve downtown New Albany” community activists, and one mentioned the numerous opportunities he'd had to network with downtown Louisville property developers while one and all were enjoying arts events at Louisville’s Mellwood Arts and Entertainment Center.

Interrupting was hard to resist, but other than a muffled harrumph, I managed to keep my thoughts to myself:

“Gee, wouldn’t it be something if one day New Albany and Floyd County’s monochromatic, knee-jerk exurban developing caste were spotted congregating at trendy arts events? At look-a-like Cracker Barrels, maybe; at a swill-choked, charred-wiener-laden tailgate party for a football game, certainly; but photo exhibitions, courtyard art displays and performances?”

Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?

But I’m serene, and remain delighted to have provided posterity and future archivists with so many vivid examples of the complicity of New Albany’s and Floyd County’s land and property developers in perpetuating our most enduring collective cognitive civic malady: Imagination Atrophy Syndrome.

Recently I described this affliction in the context of the city's non-existent accommodation for bicycling:

And that’s because New Albany’s collective 800-lb gorilla, and the ultimate source of the psychosis that so degrades all our future prospects, is an utter failure on the part of government and citizenry alike to muster any degree of comprehension as to what is occurring in the larger world that lies outside their own exceedingly narrow comfort zones.

Consequently, it isn’t just that so many drivers don’t ride bicycles and lack any semblance of understanding of the issues explicated so clearly by Daniel Robison, it’s that they can’t even imagine doing so and moreover cannot imagine life outside the confines of an automobile – and if they can’t imagine it, then how could anyone else? It follows that those who are able to imagine it must be mistaken, defective, or both, and any person sighted on a bicycle must be either too poor to afford a car or restricted to riding a bike because of a mental illness, DUI conviction, bad personal credit or contrarian tendencies …

When it comes to the local kingpins of construction, there’s certainly a paucity of constructive imagination to go around ... and around ... and around. NA Confidential gave lengthy consideration to a veritable "Exhibit A" in this January, 2006 essay:

The Gary: An excess of pure, unadulterated ego? Perhaps tolerable in the exurban sprawl, but not relevant to downtown New Albany.

While readers are strongly encouraged to navigate the link above and read the original piece in its entirety, I’ll cut to the chase and reprint the conclusion below. Nothing has happened during the 18 months since then that might lead me to doubt the veracity of this assessment, but I do sometimes wonder: Who’ll be the local developer who finally decides to think outside the self-imposed box and is the first to contribute a signature project in the New Urbanist mold to New Albany’s downtown?

Or must we look outside Floyd County to Louisville or elsewhere to find the vigorous imagination necessary for such an overdue event to occur?

Rewind to January, 2006, beginning with an newspaper excerpt from Amany Ali, then a reporter for the Tribune …

----

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

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

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

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

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

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

(NAC) We’d be wasting precious column inches to dissect The Gary’s views line by line; instead, let’s consider just one of his assertions.

Between the foot of Silver Hills and the Silver Creek watercourse, using the Ohio River as the southern boundary and Culbertson as the northern, how many churches are in operation?

Our guess is somewhere around two dozen, ranging in size from St. Mary’s (Roman Catholic) to a handful of tiny, storefront Protestant congregations.

Therefore, according to The Gary’s own stated “logic,” there should be several hundred people desirous of residency downtown, to be “near their church.”

But that’s not what The Gary was saying, is it?

Isn’t he really speaking in the exurban demographic code, with class- and race-based implications fairly obvious?

We think so.

What (Donald) Trump -- uh, McCartin -- is saying with such transparent inelegance, smirking whilst pretending to dispense “expertise” to the same city planners and public officials he is maligning because he feels they aren’t permitting him have “his way” in pending development cases, most prominently that of the Green Valley Road medical office complex that has run afoul both of the decidedly residential neighborhood where it is to sited and the local officials in charge of planning and zoning, is that people just like HIM want houses just like HIS close to the church that HE attends, with quick and easy access to chain stores HE built and the Interstate highways connecting the sprawl that HE and his ilk have engendered.

Obnoxious? Yes. Arrogant? Perhaps.

But fair enough when it comes to the way of life in the exurb. Our advocacy of those principles that have coalesced under the “New Urbanism” banner does not preclude a fundamental “to each his own” when it comes to a preference for ideological conformity and suburban sprawl – and there are any number of Gary McCartins lining up outside our doors to help these cookie cutter dreams come true.

But McCartin’s self-aggrandizing profession and the precepts that he wields like spiked clubs to help further it mean little or nothing to those who prefer the urban experience and seek its expansion and improvement, and for McCartin to blithely assert that the best solution for revitalizing downtown is to cast it in the mold of his trademark projects in the suburbs and exurbs is the height of self-inflated folly – and, given the proofs afforded us by the successful growth of urban communities elsewhere, it is palpably untrue.

In the end, The Gary probably knows this just as well as the rest of us do.

The words he spoke to Amany Ali were not offered with any sincere intent to contribute to a solution, or even to be an honest broker in any accepted sense of the idea, but as a means of jousting for advantage with his perceived enemies, while providing our local Luddite obstructionists with a convenient pull quote to wave in the air during public speaking time at council meetings.

In the end, The Gary turns out to be little more than another playground bully, and as such, small wonder that he and Councilman Cappuccino have formed an alliance to denigrate downtown New Albany’s best hope for success in many decades, understanding that a guerrilla war of petty obfuscation and delaying tactics might somehow succeed in halting projects like Scribner Place, leaving an expanse of open ground where the buildings already have been knocked down sans the need for messy eminent domain actions … in the councilman’s home district … just a big, empty place to build a big, new building or two of the sort that people like The Gary really want.

Perhaps then, owing to these "advantageous" McCartinesque circumstances, we’d get our big-box discounter on West Main, with an ample pool of Coffeyite customers to be drawn from the poverty-stricken inhabitants of the inner city – confined to living near their churches, and not sullying the neat lawns and social order in the New Albanian exurb, the one that expresses so very well the ethical limitations inherent in growth for the sake of growth -- the ideology of the cancer cell -- taking precedence over the interests of society as a whole.

To summarize, there are many people currently engaged in consideration of these interests as they apply to downtown revitalization, and as The Gary now has illustrated, albeit inadvertently, the single best way to proceed with the plan for this revitalization is to accept that downtown must be remade as differently as possible from the exurb -- which is to say, we must pursue the polar opposite of any path recommended by The Gary.

Hey, thanks for the encouragement, Mr. McCartin. Your "expertise" has proven quite useful, after all.

Get thee to the Hofbrauhaus Newport. Seriously.

(Originally published a few days ago at Potable Curmudgeon, my beer blog)

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Few institutions in the world of beer and brewing are as revered as Munich’s Hofbrauhaus.

Few are as misunderstood.

People the world over tend to confuse regional Bavarian culture with that of Germany as a whole, something that never fails to elicit sighs from residents of Bremen, Idar-Oberstein and Hannover. In like fashion, the Hofbrauhaus is erroneously viewed as the exact model of how German beer is made, served and celebrated, but in fact it is uncommon to see such a large-scale beer and food service entity outside of Munich itself, even in the remainder of Bavaria.

Other than a shared fondness for pilsner-style lagers, which is a relatively recent historical development, beer and beer culture vary widely throughout Germany. Munich has no smoked beer; Bamberg does. Cologne and Dusseldorf brew Kolsch and Alt, respectively, and both are top-fermenting, but neither city has a tradition of wheat ales, which are a Bavarian innovation … except for Berliner-style wheat ales, which are something entirely different and come from much further north.

To be sure, Bavaria’s self-promotional savvy conjures imagery of Lederhosen, Bratwurst and “Ein Prosit!”, and as such, it is perhaps appropriate that a pilgrimage to the Hofbrauhaus at its Platzl address has been de rigueur for tourists in Munich ever since the current building was constructed in 1897. Be as curmudgeonly as you please, and yet no one seriously doubts that a visit to the Hofbrauhaus is fun, memorable and infinitely capable of being photographed.

Paris feasts may be moveable, but Hofbrauhaus stories are expandable. Typically soft, clean Bavarian lagers are served in oversized liter mugs, pork in all its conceivable bodily incarnations is expertly prepared, a vast and sprawling acreage of diners and drinkers clink noisy toasts and sing along as they are regaled by tuneful brass bands, and restrooms the size of Rhode Island are patronized constantly and tended by grimly serious cleaning personnel.

While the Hofbrauhaus well represents Bavarian beer, cuisine and communal traditions at an almost lunatic, exaggerated extreme, experiencing these wonders would be nowhere as delightful if their intrinsic worthiness were not so transparently obvious to beginners and veterans alike.

But can that worthiness be transplanted to foreign climes?

In 1999, and with much fanfare, the Hofbrauhaus was cloned and a second location opened in … yes, Dubai, of all places. This was followed by a third site in Newport, Kentucky (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio) in 2003, and then another in Las Vegas. A fifth Hofbrauhaus is slated to open in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the fall of 2007. More are sure to follow.

I had not had the chance to visit the Hofbrauhaus Newport until last Saturday afternoon, when it was crammed to the rafters with locals and tourists devoting a gorgeous day to enjoying resurgent Newport’s aquarium and surrounding shops and eateries, or, like my party, preparing to walk across the nearby pedestrian and bicycle bridge to watch the Reds play at Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati.

Hofbrauhaus Newport’s web site takes a reasonable approach to expectations in spite of muddling the Bavarian with the German:

The first authentic Hofbräuhaus in America is here. Guests are now able to enjoy many of the traditions from Germany that have made Hofbräuhaus famous.

So it was for us, and we enjoyed the ongoing translation of these venerable traditions into something comprehensible for the masses, and that for the most part has not lost its potency and relevance during the course of the conversion. As one who has been to the Hofbrauhaus Munich and numerous establishments throughout greater Bavaria many times since 1985, the ultimate compliment that I can pay the Hofbrauhaus Newport is that during much of my time there, while devouring a workmanlike facsimile of Leberkase and several (small for varied sampling) mugs of tasty Bavarian style Helles, Dunkles and Export, it was indeed possible to drift off into an incredibly relaxed continental reverie – and accordingly, almost impossible to resist hopping a cab to the nearby Northern Kentucky airport for an immediate flight to the original Munich address to sate the voracious desires thus released.

So, just remember: You’ll enjoy “many” of the traditions, and “much” of it will be authentic, at the Hofbrauhaus Newport, but an exact match it is not (and to its credit, does not claim to be).

Brewing is licensed and supervised by German brewers, and it shows, although the presence of a “light” version reminds you that it’s the Ohio outside and not the Isar. Televisions at Newport make sense; not in the Munich Hofbrauhaus. The Newport menu has numerous reliable Bavarian beer hall options, and the overall effect is quite close to the mark, but to be blunt, Americans simply don’t do pork as pork is done in Bavaria – and burgers aren’t exactly on the Speisekarte at the Platzl location. Finally, Bavarians instinctively understand one crucial truth about beer and the average male: Allow him to drink liters of tasty lager, and he will make frequent trips (somewhere) to return that spent liquid to nature. That’s why the Hofbrau Munich restrooms are so thoughtfully large … and the HB Newport might profit from it.

By and large, these are niggling criticisms, and a trip to the Hofbrauhaus Newport is highly recommended by the Publican.

Riding back to Louisville after the game with a busload of human karaoke machines is much less desired. In Bavaria, they’d have been speaking German, and while still obnoxious, not so painfully fact deprived.

The first monthly Downtown Saturday is tomorrow.

The first monthly Downtown Saturday takes place tomorrow, August 4, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The flyer below provides the gist of the plan, and you can read more about Downtown Saturdays and other happenings in the Develop New Albany newsletter: The Renaissance Chronicle.

Also tomorrow is the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association meet-n-greet, running from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on the lawn of Central Christian Church. ESNA's gathering will have hot dogs and chips, drinks, games, and information from neighborhood businesses.

Holy Mahatma, Batman!

It's nowhere near Halloween, but now our adorable Erika thinks she's Mohandas Gandhi.

Hmm. I guess they both wear glasses. Just stay away from that loincloth, poseur.

For more on the phenomenon of the faux academic "Erik," read this: “Dork and Mindy” advocate openness – behind their bleeding skull voodoo masks, of course.

Tribune reports on recent redistricting lawsuit developments.

New Albany redistricting deal in the works, by Eric Scott Campbell (News & Tribune).

A group of New Albany residents claimed headlines in May 2006 when they sued the city to redraw its voting districts to more equivalent populations …

... “There’s no urgency to it at this point,” said (6th district councilman Jeff) Gahan, a candidate for re-election in November. “I think the ball is going to be in the next council’s court.”

The prospect of the council — rather than a special panel appointed by a judge — drawing up the new district boundaries did not appeal to Randy Smith, a plaintiff and owner of Destinations Booksellers downtown.

The proposal “would be less than a slap on the wrist. ... I doubt seriously that we’re going to accept this,” said Smith, who added that at least four other plaintiffs feel the same way.

Fellow plaintiff Jeff Gillenwater said the 18 plaintiffs planned to convene soon to discuss Beardsley’s proposal, which Gillenwater has read in part.

“I’m not sure what the response is going to be,” Gillenwater said.

Now we know, although I’m not yet at liberty to disclose it. Sorry about that.

But stay tuned, and be sure to attend the coming Monday’s city council meeting. We’re hearing eerie tales that recently strange bedfellows just keep getting stranger when it comes to the time-honored ritual of “full investigations.”

REWIND (2006): Tribune reports: Redistricting lawsuit filed today - with thrilling Erika update.

Here's what we had to say about the council redistricting lawsuit when it was filed in 2006. The post below was published on Tuesday, May 16, 2006, with the "Erika addendum" coming on the morning of Wednesday, May 17. Since then, incumbent 2nd district councilman Bill Schmidt was defeated by Bob Caesar in the Democratic primary.

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JUST IN: Residents file suit against New Albany, Council, by Eric Scott Campbell (News-Tribune).

Twenty residents sued New Albany and the City Council Tuesday afternoon, claiming population imbalance in council districts and calling for a special commission to investigate.

To echo the words of our colleague Bluegill, there’s ample time for the council to grandstand over take-home police cars, but not time for it to address a state-mandated redistricting that is three years overdue.

Why is it that when some folks here in town – people who otherwise are willing and eager to worship raw numbers and the mystical discipline of numerology on an hourly basis – are shown statistics that clearly illustrate a disparity in population between various of New Albany’s city council electoral districts, and when the same people are confronted with the word “redistricting” as an equally obvious (and lawfully mandated) means of properly redressing the undisputable imbalance in numbers, their hurried response isn’t to agree or disagree with the evidence in such a manner that might lead to a healthy debate, but rather to launch into an immediate defense of Councilman Bill Schmidt, whose 2nd District just happens to be “home to 42 percent more people than Dan Coffey’s District 1, the second-most-populous district.”

For instance, take the 4th District’s ward-heeling council warhorse, CM Larry Kochert.

Please take him.

CM Kochert mimicked these responses in remarks last week to the Tribune: “I do recognize that Mr. Schmidt’s district is out of proportion. But Bill is 100 percent retired, and I think he responds to everybody that calls him … I don’t think there’s been any slighting of representation.”

Using this same Kochertian logic – his “spin the patronage wheel” rule of law and local politics – Bill Clinton might have remained in office forever. After all, he was doing a fine job, and like so many other inconvenient statutory limitations, enforcement of the two-term limit obviously ended up costing the Democrats voters when Clinton was forced to go away and make room for the man who will be judged by posterity as the worst ever American president.

Speaking of laws, CM Schmidt’s name, employment status and length of tenure unsurprisingly do not appear carved in the stone of state legal passages relevant to this topic, as the Tribune’s Campbell recently reported.

Might this be because the core principles of fair and equal representation are contingent neither on the identity of the person currently occupying a specific office, nor on his or her performance of duties?

A section of state law governs district apportionment for legislative councils in cities the size of New Albany.

The districts shall “contain, as nearly as is possible, equal population.” Redistricting, which is the council’s own responsibility, is also mandated every 10 years, two years after each federal census. In addition, “this division may be made at any other time.”

Though the council redistricted in 1992, it failed to do so in 2002.

“I do recognize that Mr. Schmidt’s district is out of proportion,” concedes CM Kochert from the vantage point of three years of contemplation.

According to the law, this is the central point. It’s the only relevant point.

All the rest is smoke, mirrors, and pure politics.

----

Wednesday morning update:

My, my … semi-literate hacks unsuccessfully masquerading as college professors sure all touchy nowadays:

NA CONFIDENTIAL & ROGER BAYLOR LIES AGAIN!

Strange how we keep jangling unbalanced nerves around town.

Note that the politically transgendered Erik/Erika – whose commitment to freedom of speech is so strong that he/she does not allow comments or responses of any sort -- cannot refute either of NAC’s two basic premises in this case: Indiana law stipulates districts with a semblance of equal population, and the council has failed to redistrict for three years.

Instead, Erik/Erika merely rejigs his/her existing reams of venom, spite and vituperation into a fresh, new round of anonymous slander -- and expects the reading public to buy the biggest "lie" of all: That the slime emanates from the pen of a genuine, educated academic.

My dear Erik/Erika, if CM Schmidt truly supported redistricting before, and if he admits that the districts are unbalanced – and if his commitment to law is as you and other continue to insist – then why has he failed to take the lead in this issue for the past three years? What has stopped him from standing tall and urging his fellow council members to do the right thing?

Or is this somehow “different” according to Little People Law?

Note yet again that NAC's founder has yet to suggest that CM Schmidt fails his constituents when it comes to service.

What I have suggested, and what I will continue to suggest for so long as it is merited by the evidence, is that during the past three years, CM Schmidt has failed to support the wider interests of the city at large by combining with the others on the right hand/wrong side of the table in anti-progressive obstructionism.

Erik/Erika’s latest attack serves only to support NAC’s thesis by ignoring the central point of the redistricting issue and erecting another convenient straw man for intemperate lashing.

A real college professor?

No, she just plays one on her blog.

Here are the redistricting lawsuit facts as best can be gleaned at the current time.

In the case of Vogt vs. Civil City of New Albany, of which the author is one of as many as 18 plaintiffs (one original plaintiff has since withdrawn, and one is deceased), and which we’ll be referring to henceforth as the council redistricting lawsuit, a United States District Court trial date has been set for December 3, 2007.

The first pre-trial conference was held last Friday, July 27 at the Federal Building in New Albany. Attending were William Hussman (Magistrate Judge), Stephen Beardsley (attorney for the plaintiffs) and Jerry Ulrich (attorney for the council).

It is safe to assume that potential outcomes were discussed.

Three council members were in the building, but apparently were not in attendance inside the chambers: Larry Kochert, Jeff Gahan and Kevin Zurschmiede.

As of Wednesday morning, there has yet to surface trustworthy independent verification to Ms. Kersey’s rapidly mutating rumor yesterday about a telephone call from Mr. Baylor (that’s me), styled in this manner at her blog:

Mr. Ulrich received a message from a Clerk of the Court, from Mr. Baylor, asking Mr. Beardsley to telephone him asap. Mr. Ulrich responded he was not that party's attorney (Mr. Beardsley).

Any person possessing verifiable information supporting this assertion, please step forward -- not so fast, Ms. Kersey.

It should be noted that such groundless rumors, as rooted in fertile and kaleidoscopic imaginations, might yet have transformed by now into tales of a completely different stripe, as occurred on more than one occasion on Tuesday.

There it is; the preceding is part of the public record, and as more is learned, it will be reported here.

See: Council redistricting lawsuit: Battling disinformation is like swatting troglodyte gnats.

Council redistricting lawsuit: Battling disinformation is like swatting gnats.

It should be obvious by now that not all local bloggers have, shall we tactfully say, the same honorable standards for differentiation when it comes to fact and fiction.

Because of this unfortunate variance, and also because not all local bloggers are noted for their commitment to predictability as it pertains to the frequency of updates and corrections, I’m compelled to make a public note of blatant disinformation appearing in two July 29, 2007 postings of the Fiscally Conservative Floyd County Democrat blog.

The first was corrected, and graciously, but the second has not been set straight as of the time of this writing.

From the outset, it should be known that I am one of 20 plaintiffs in the council redistricting lawsuit, which is explained in this NAC posting of May 16, 2006:

Tribune reports: Redistricting lawsuit filed today.

“Twenty residents sued New Albany and the City Council Tuesday afternoon, claiming population imbalance in council districts and calling for a special commission to investigate.”

To echo the words of our colleague Bluegill, there’s ample time for the council to grandstand over take-home police cars, but not time for it to address a state-mandated redistricting that is three years overdue.

Make that four.

The attorney for the plaintiffs is Stephen Beardsley, the attorney for the city council is Jerry Ulrich, and if there has been any progress made in any noteworthy way toward resolving the complaint in the 14+ months that have passed since the suit was originally filed, I’m not aware of it.

In fact, I’ve expressed frequent and periodically scathing public annoyance at not being kept informed by our own attorney, which makes it all the more surprising that Yvonne Kersey (“Con-Dem”), author of the FCFCD blog, spent most of the blogday on Monday insisting first that I had been privy to a top level meeting between a judge, two attorneys and selected city council members, and then when her opening bluff was called, expediently coming up with a new version of the story holding that a “Mr. Baylor” called the Federal Building in search of attorney Beardsley during the aforementioned conclave – with the clear insinuation that the Mr. Baylor in question was up to no good.

That there are 19 other plaintiffs in the case seems to have eluded Con-Dem, who has chosen to focus erroneously on just one.

Now, as farfetched as it may sound, it may actually be the case that someone else named Mr. Baylor, or someone pretending to be Mr. Baylor, phoned the Federal Building in search of Stephen Beardsley on the day in question, resulting in a clerk walking into a meeting room and repeating my surname in the presence of city councilmen Kevin Zurschmiede and Larry Kochert, who Ms. Kersey insists have “verified” her much amended blog report.

But that seems highly doubtful, doesn’t it?

Seeing as Ms. Kersey has chosen to leave my name on her second of two published falsehoods in spite of my request to edit it, I’ve little choice except to state the following for the public record:

I have neither telephoned the Federal Building nor spoken with a clerk there – to my knowledge, not a single time ever in my life.

Furthermore, I have not spoken with Mr. Ulrich for two or three weeks, perhaps longer; the last time I can remember chatting with him was on the way out of the City-County building following a council meeting, although it may have been in passing at the Bistro New Albany.

Also, the last time I spoke with Mr. Beardsley was roughly two weeks ago, at the former Main Street Grind, where a witness with whom I was breakfasting can verify that the topic of the conversation was the birth of his grandchild, and that I did not mention the redistricting case at all. In fact, I've not discussed the redistricting case with attorney Beardsley for nine months or more, and probably closer to a year, since shortly after it was filed.

It is disconcerting to waste valuable time on such matters, which might have been laid to rest with a simple phone call, but such is the recurring pattern of vividly turgid (and untruthful) revelation, followed by a silence sufficiently lengthy for the bald-faced lie to coalesce, and by the time the retraction (if any) is issued, the damage already has been done.

Toward what purpose? That is much harder to determine. The blogger Con-Dem herself speaks of the possibility of Democrats having “a caucus meeting so we can put Mr. (Bill) Schmidt back in,” which is a real knee-slapper considering the overwhelming defeat suffered by the incumbent at the hands of challenger Bob Caesar.

Bizarrely, Ms. Kersey asks: “IS THIS THE REAL STORY, AFTER ALL? ARE THE FACTS RIGHT ON THIS ONE, THIS TIME?”

As with the first time, the answer is “no.”

But that hasn’t stopped her before, has it?

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Yesterday's first Con-Dem post: WHAT IS IT -- SOMETHING NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT?

Night of the living plastic bottled swill Hell … but a good time for the discerning.

Imagine that you’ve paid the very reasonable price of $80 for a chartered bus seat, a ticket in the right field stands to watch the Chicago Cubs vs. the homestanding Cincinnati Reds, a pre-game picnic meal of barbecue and the fixings, and all the craft draft beer you can drink before and after the game.

Imagine that the three craft beers on tap on the bus are BBC APA (Main & Clay), Browning’s She-Devil IPA, and Browning’s Helles, the latter a German-style golden lager perfectly familiar to any person who has ever suckled an ice-cold Bud Light.

Imagine that such an unprecedented deal isn’t quite good enough for you, so you ignore the craft beer you’ve already paid for, pack a cooler with canned and bottled swill, throw back a dozen or more overpriced “waters,” as Sergio would call them, during the ballgame, and at a moment of supreme self-revelation during the journey home, begin belting out an off-key version of the best-forgotten, hoary seventies paean to piddling Parrotland, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” – all the while believing that in your choice of beer, music and life, you’re being somehow clever and the life of the party.

I can’t imagine it, although I experienced it on Saturday.

However, it is my pleasure to report that entirely apart from redneck contingents originating in my (sighhh) home town of New Albany, there is good beer to be found at the Hofbrauhaus Newport, and even at Great American Ball Park itself. Within 100 yards of our seats at the home field of the Reds, I found Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale, BarrelHouse Red Legg and an unidentified Flying Dog, along with a Red Hook IPA -- all ridiculously priced at $7.25 per plastic cup, but at least bearing tangible sign of hops and hope.

Meanwhile, mainstream America supped predictably at the altar of mainstream plastic bottles as the Reds bowed unconvincingly to the Cubs by an 8-1 score before a sellout “home” crowd of 42,500, of whom at least six of ten were Cubs, not Reds, supporters.

That’s surreal, but not as surreal as the bizarro-world spectacle of swill-hounds eschewing all-inclusive craft beer for the nadir of American brewing. Might I have been able to assist by providing salt, limes and other irrelevancies?

Verily, I should be used to it by now, but there are times when New Albany can really get to a guy ... and follow him back and forth during an otherwise marvelous break.

Council vs. stormwater board: Media coverage.

Sunday edition elaboration from the Courier-Journal following yesterday's rare Saturday morning city council meeting :

New Albany ponders changes; Council might curb storm-water board, by Dick Kaukas.

The New Albany City Council took a first step yesterday toward restricting the powers of the city's storm water board, which recently agreed to a $507,000 no-bid contract with a private company to manage the city's drainage system.

Technically, the council voted 5-1 at a special meeting to repeal the ordinance that created the board a year ago.

But council members, including Beverly Crump and Kevin Zurschmiede, made it clear that what they really want to do is amend the ordinance ...

For the moment, the Tribune has not posted Eric Scott Campbell’s meeting coverage to its web site. We’ll check back Sunday afternoon.

Council spanner lands, according to New Albany Today.

NAC had no intention of letting the dysfunctional drama manufacturing firm otherwise known as the New Albany city council interfere with a whole blessed day off to watch the Reds lose to the Cubs.

But Maury Goldberg's New Albany Today blog is reporting that ...

Breaking News on New Albany Today!

The New Albany City Council votes to repeal the Stormwater Board.

Street Department Union filed for an Injunction to prevent the contract between the Stormwater Board and EMC from taking effect on August 1, 2007.

CM Coffey calls special meeting to revoke city charter, squelch dissent and declare barbecued bologna the official municipal delectable.

Well, not exactly. Councilman Cappuccino wasn't alone in moving for a meeting, and he merely seeks to disband that nasty stormwater drainage board, which has been the bane of Coffey’s existence ever since President Kochert handed over the drain-o dossier and beseeched the Wizard of Westside to go forth and stultify.

Coffey: Disband New Albany drainage board; Contract approval surprised officials; board chair emphasizes independence, by Eric Scott Campbell (News & Tribune).

New Albany City Councilman Dan Coffey, the legislature’s liaison to the year-old Stormwater Board, has proposed disbanding and reconstituting the panel ...

... Coffey plans to introduce the bill at a hastily arranged Saturday council meeting, a week after the Stormwater Board surprised many city officials by voting to transfer the utility’s employees to the control of management contractor Environmental Management Corp.

As you may recall, Coffey enthusiastically responded to the challenge of serving as council liaison by dodging board meetings, where he might have been compelled to take dictation from uppity people with genuine university degrees who wouldn’t know a Bazooka Joe parchment from the doggie droppings on a typical Parisian street.

But there’s more. The Courier-Journal's Dick Kaukas adds spice to the story with this:

City Clerk Marcey Wisman said the special meeting had been called by five of the council's nine members, as permitted under council rules. She said the five who called the meeting are Coffey, Donnie Blevins, Bill Schmidt, Steve Price and Jeff Gahan.

Kochert, a recurring pillar of the obstructionist Gang of Four, can’t very well sign his name to Coffey’s EMC purge consent form, seeing as the lame duck’s own sewer board just finished awarding a no-bid contract of its own. Meeting agenda items pertaining to the city budget and departmental contract policies make it difficult to discern who hopes to accomplish what.

With battle lines blurred and so much remaining to obfuscate before December 31, when a new council alignment comes into being and the Gang's position may well be eroded, will it be a Saturday morning massacre, with all council members fully caffeinated, if not contemplative? Will the Krispy Kreme deliveryman make an unscheduled appearance? Does anyone really believe that Drew Carey can replace Bob Barker?

Why bother reading pulp fiction when real life is so endlessly entertaining?

One Southern Indiana chairman flicks his Bic as ROCK proposes to burn the sinners.

Coincidentally, I noticed the “XXX – Garbage In, Garbage Out” billboard while traveling on I-65 yesterday, and having taken an interest in the topic almost 30 years ago while in high school, leaped to the conclusion that it was another wild salvo in the decades-long effort to shut down Clarksville’s Theatair-X -- now sans those legendary drive-in accoutrements, and merely the adult "superstore" crowding the outer fringe of the 10th wonder of the world, otherwise known as the Veterans Parkway chain store paradise, and on an everyday basis scaring away good Christians from supporting the war in Iraq by eating at the nearby Cheddar’s, where each appetizer purchased is another nail in bin Laden's coffin.

Turns out my hunch was mostly on the mark. In this news story, the Courier-Journal notes the most recent …

Anti-pornography effort launched in Clarksville; Billboard targets adult businesses, by Harold J. Adams

A Louisville-based anti-pornography group came to Clarksville yesterday to launch a campaign against pornography and sex-related businesses in the metro area.

Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana, or ROCK, held a news conference under a campaign billboard at Veterans Parkway and Interstate 65.

I’m so old that I remember Citizens for Decency through Law, a representative of which made a presentation to my senior civics class in 1978. We’d scheduled an employee of Theatair-X to appear and provide instructive counterpoint, but he cancelled at the last minute. Later that year, he was shot down while mowing his yard. My aversion to cutting grass dates to that time.

At any rate, being innocently asked to “reclaim” a culture so seldom in evidence, and so consistently elusive in a pluralistic society, requires a certain commitment to impartiality and a respect for a multiplicity of viewpoints.

Unfortunately, after visiting ROCK’s website and seeing photos of the group’s president (unsurprisingly, one of several New Albany residents involved) in the general vicinity of our nation’s failed and perfectly impeachable chief executive, and also beaming alongside the banner at the Colorado base camp of Focus on Family, you'll excuse me for guessing that we’ll be having none of it during the course of this latest fundamentalist crusade.

But I’m most curious about this section in reporter Adams’s article:

(ROCK President Bryan) Wickens was joined by Kerry Stemler, chairman of One Southern Indiana, the Clark and Floyd counties' chamber of commerce and economic development council.

"We need ... an economy that our children and grandchildren will want to be a part of," Stemler said.

Boy, is THAT a loaded statement.

Leaving aside the suitability of 1SI’s chairman publicly siding with a haywire religious lobby group, we’ve seen lately that the development council’s tortured definition of a suitably futuristic regional economy still includes a healthy fetish for exurban sprawl, a jolly endorsement of continuing dependence on foreign oil and a concurrently blatant disregard for mass transportation strategies; excuse me for being impertinent, but aren’t discussions over these matters closer to 1SI’s ideal (if not its daily) purpose than providing photo-op succor to native Christian extremists?

Back in 1978, one of our topic presentation pieces was extracted from the pages of Hustler (I’d really prefer you not ask how we obtained it), one featuring photos of disfigured and mutilated corpses and the title, “War – The Ultimate Obscenity.”

Three decades later, it's all I recall from that class. Contrary to popular opinion, I actually did learn something in high school.

LEO's Stephen George on the death of a bicyclist; NAC's junior editor on the Bridges Project and oil addiction.

A tip of the hat goes to Stephen George.

The LEO writer has made metro transportation his personal issue, and he’s a tenacious bulldog about it. It's refreshing to see a writer filling the classic role.

Sadly, I’m so old that I can remember when such journalistic dynamos were the stock in trade of the Courier-Journal, but now, given the numbing and dumbing effects of two decades of stewardship by Gannett (a word that bears a striking resemblance to the Spanish word “garrote,” which is a length of chain, wire or rope used to strangle someone to death, or in this usage: “From its hidden vantage point in the back seat, the Courier-Journal editorial board has shamelessly Gannetted/garroted the concept of 8664 on a regular basis.”)

George’s article this week:

A bridge to bike-friendly

How Chips Cronen, the cyclist who died on the Second Street Bridge earlier this month, will help change the way you think about road riding — for the better.

Here are a handful of links that will help you understand the significance of Cronen’s death:

A Cyclist’s Death

Safe Streets Louisville

Reasons you should ride a bicycle & your business should use bike based couriers

Meanwhile, yesterday NAC pointed toward:

(An) 8664 event today on the Great Lawn of Louisville's Waterfront Park.

This led to a wonderful posting at John Gonder’s blog:

A Utopian Greenway ?

Later in the day on Wednesday, my colleague Bluegill weighed in on the configuration of the Greenway and provided this instructive comment, which I’m now lifting to the marquee:

A part of the problem is that the (Greenway) project is being mostly funded with federal transportation dollars.

The politicians who decry oil company price gouging and our involvement in the Middle East in relation to oil are the very same bunch who perpetuate a transportation funding system that heavily favors gas guzzling automobile projects at the expense of fuel-sparing ones.

Per Thomas Friedman of the NY Times and many others, we pay for it all twice. Once at the pump, where dollars ultimately end up in the oily hands of those funding terrorists, insurgents, etc., and then again with our tax dollars via the military who are given the life threatening but ridiculous job of warding off the groups we fund.

Meanwhile, our tax dollars are used to create single occupancy vehicle projects that not only exacerbate our dependence on the above cycle but also preclude a significant portion of the population from getting to jobs, school, and other life improving activities.

If that's not enough, development groups like One Southern Indiana and Greater Louisville Incorporated then come around asking for even more tax dollars, at least a portion of which will be used to convince us that following that same path as quickly and blindly as possible is the only way to salvage our economic well-being.

The only person who represents us at the federal level who currently seems to understand all that (and who knows what's happened to Yarmuth) is Indiana Senator Richard Lugar.

Readers, particularly very pro-business Republicans, should check out the energy section of his web site, particularly the link to curing our oil addiction.

It's not at all disingenuous to suggest that the Bridges Project and automobile portions of the Greenway support terrorism.

I'm especially pleased. I already knew that NABC's brewing equipment helps to kill fascists. Now I can take the added pleasure in knowing that my Trek hybrid is a weapon against terrorism, and that I don't even have to shop 'til I drop to be a cog in the war.

Before all this came up, we noted that New Albany could use a "positive spirit" enlargement pill when it comes to attitudes toward bicycling, but don't hold your breath.

8664 event today on the Great Lawn of Louisville's Waterfront Park.

(8:25 a.m. update: Want to see what a "true greenway should look like?" Go to John Gonder's blog and see: A Utopian Greenway? )

Why is it that every time I read a C-J agitprop piece lancing the straw man that the formerly "great" newspaper has laboriously constructed from 8664's mostly thoughtful advocacy, I think of the all-too-extant proposal to build an automotive bridge for a "greenway" (?) right through the middle of the Loop Island Wetlands in New Albany?

And how we can't revise the plan to do the right thing because the money we don't have already is budgeted?

In turn, why does that remind me of Mrs. Schmidt's reasoning to the effect that a "greenway" must be entirely automotive because it's the only way that grandparents might be able to use it with their grandchildren -- as though walking and biking ends at the age of, say, 56?

Oops, I almost forgot. There's an 8664 event today. The following came to us from Tyler and JC. You can register to receive e-mail notices at 8664's website.

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What: 8664 Event
When: 5:40 pm Wednesday
Where: The Great Lawn, Waterfront Park

Join us this afternoon to celebrate Louisville's waterfront and support 8664. We're going to gather on the east side of the Great Lawn before the Waterfront Wednesday concert to show this community what the downtown portion of the Bridges Project will do to our waterfront. Please come help us form a line 75 feet north of I-64 showing how much more of our park will be covered by concrete.

Bring a $10 donation and receive an "Our way or the highway" t-shirt. Supplies are limited. Get there early to allow time for parking. Your best bet might be to park on Witherspoon or Preston.

Stay for the concert. The WFPK Waterfront Wednesday concert will start at 6 pm and go until dark. This will be the quietest concert on the waterfront until we replace I-64 with a parkway, so stick around and enjoy Louisville's waterfront.

Special Thanks
Thanks to all the people who have contributed online and/or sent checks. Interestingly, we've received contributions from Washington, DC, Vermont and Seattle. Keep the support coming and we'll keep focusing on Louisville's future. If you haven't already, you can help us today and contribute online.

Thanks for keeping the faith.

Peace,

Tyler Allen and JC Stites
http://www.8664.org/

8664 Mission
To advocate for the revitalization of Louisville through the removal of Interstate 64 along the riverfront and the adoption of a transportation plan that will provide long-term benefits to the region's citizens, neighborhoods, environment and economy.

PS Another CJ web-only readers letter:

Traffic not so bad

I have been driving from Oldham County to Broadway on weekday mornings this summer. During construction on the Restore64 project, I have switched from taking I-64 to 9th Street to exiting I-65 at Jefferson St. I've noticed no difference; in fact I-65 may be the better route anyway. I can't help thinking that if the "through" traffic were required to "go around" via an East End Bridge (or the Snyder within Kentucky); the traffic from the Gene Snyder to Spaghetti Junction would be relieved substantially.
--LAURIE SPEZZANO Crestwood, Ky.

The vision thing ... and just doing it.

Just draw up a proposal of what you envision for New Albany and present it to the City Fathers and fight for the adoption of the proposal. Stop talking and Just Do It!

The preceding is a comment that was appended to yesterday’s posting about attitudes toward bicycling in New Albany. The comment comes from a friend, so it is far from a trognonymous jab from behind the hedge. Emphatically, my repeating it in this context should not be construed as a provocation of any sort. Rather, I’d like to use it as a starting point to ask a question.

Isn’t "just do it" precisely what is being done?

From my perspective, we’ve all but gone blind “envisioning” New Albany, and amid a prevailing "banana republic" atmosphere of timidity, unresponsiveness and irrationality, “just do it” would seem to have become the active mantra of a small and growing band of entrepreneurs, investors, activists and consumers. Their collective strength seems to be growing by the day, and overall, we’re grinding forward and making progress in dragging the city, albeit kicking and screaming, into the 20th century.

(Yes, I know. Suffice to say we were a bit behind the curve, and still are, but things are better than they were three years ago … aren’t they? I believe they are better, because at least now, we can see some movement)

But enough from me. Readers, what do you think? In practical terms, what can be done to assist the "just do it" mentality?