Enduring city council images, Part 356.

Today's Tribune column: "Hot Hofstadter, cold Cappuccino."

Code enforcement alert: Today's column knowingly and indiscriminately violates the city of New Albany's ban on words of four syllables or more. I'm at home this morning and available to be cited and/or arrested.

BAYLOR: Hot Hofstadter, cold Cappuccino

On Monday evening, I overheard a New Albany city councilman explaining to a bystander how much more he knows about drainage issues than any number of trained experts in the field, and that our problems with stormwater primarily result from virulent conspiracies between city planners and a veritable mafia of builders.

I reached for my steaming wand, and thought immediately of Bayard R. Hall.

R.O.C.K.'s chapter in Athens stocks up on petrol and Bics.

The Guardian talks sex lives of the ancient Greeks, and we can only hope that the exhibition described within eventually comes to rest across the street from the creation museum up in Kaintuck.

The ancient Greeks were never at a loss for words when it came to love and lust – and an exhibition that opened in Athens today laying bare the practice of sex in classical times through an unprecedented collection of eye-popping art partly explains why.

Eros, the god of love and the great loosener of limbs, was many things: irresistible, tender, beautiful, excruciating, maddening, merciless and bittersweet. There was no position, no touch, no predilection too outre to pay homage to him. From the affectionate embrace to group sex, love came in many forms.

"The Greeks were anything but prudes," said Nicholaos Stampolidis, director of the Museum of Cycladic Art, where the show will run for six months. "Theirs was a society of great tolerance and lack of guilt."

No time for discussing property tax caps -- there's beer to be sold.

I'm off with the sales crew (both of them) to Indianapolis for a day of NABC draft sales. NABC currently has somewhere around 15 accounts among points north, including Indy, Muncie, Noblesville and Zionsville. We'll be visiting current and (hopefully) future accounts across the city, then cap the day with an appearance at the Barley Island brewery's new location in Broad Ripple for the tapping of Indianapolis' only keg of Hoptimus this year.

If Bleugill feels so inclined, he may choose to drop in and post. If not, I'll be back with you late tonight or tomorrow morning. Ciao.

New Albany grocery coop meeting tonight ... and other NA events.

NAC's odometer clicked over ...

... 400,000 hits, late on Monday night.

Council notes from Monday, December 7.

Here are my unedited notes from last night’s council meeting. We were eating wings and drinking beer by 8:30, so yo can't say it was a bad night.

--

The recently self-deposed former council attorney Stan Robison is nowhere in sight as another city council meeting is brought to order. But who will keep the Prez from bowing to temptation, as the Lord’s Prayer (why?) asks him?

Tonight’s spinning wheel of council chamber Internet access came to rest on “connected to the server, but server not connected to the Internet.” Some day, can there be consistent service?

CALL TO ORDER: Done.

PRAYER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Done.

ROLL CALL: Done.

APPROVAL OR CORRECTION OF THE FOLLOWING MINUTES: New Albany City Council Regular Meeting minutes of November 19, 2009 … done.

COMMUNICATIONS – PUBLIC:

1. New Albany Baseball: Plea for the realization of plans to build baseball facilities atop the mesa behind Home Depot off State. Says that the Mt. Tabor facility outmoded and about to be supplanted by road widening. They have spoken to the county, state and others. Sees some potential in co-operation for various other land use needs, including aquatic park, youth shelter, etc. Says incoming tournaments can benefit businesses. No questions from the napping.

Thought for sure Steve Price would disagree. Doesn’t he always?

2. Penny Kessler: May 15 flooding victim. Noticed that August flooding gets the press, but wants to make sure the “bailout” reaches her, too. She is reassured.

Coffey: For the council’s information, no need in hiring a new attorney for two meetings, so Shane Gibson is the stand-in. Shane observes that questions can be thrown at him, not objects. The fun is being drained form the proceedings.

COMMUNICATIONS – CITY OFFICIALS:

Jeff Gahan: Sewer utility budget demands a work session. Two items stand out: (1) $300,000 to Georgetown; (2) $100,000 of bonuses for EMC – good news because it means benchmarks are being met, but would like to talk more about it.

COMMUNICATIONS – MAYOR

Coffey actually lets C. Malysz speak. Usually he does not. Looks like the end-of-year charm offensive is fully under way.

Carl Malysz: Reiterates NA Little League message. Solutions being sought. Mayor England stresses this as forward-looking effort, and would like for it to be taken under advisement.

Also: A memo distributed that outlines $25 million in thoroughfare projects, with complete details, estimates, etc. Not to be confused with the paving program. Report for the previous paving expenditure has been made. A few ancillary things yet to be contracted, and may be needed to recapture some money at the beginning of the year by resolution.

Bob Caesar: Wants there to be an end date on the Daisy Lane project completion. The last segment took too long.

DISCUSSION REGARDING THE 2010 SEWER BUDGET: Already broached by Gahan.

APPOINTMENTS: None.

APPROVAL OF CF-1 FORMS: None.

INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS: READING

A-09-20 Additional Appropriation in the Rainy Day Fund To Storm water Fund in an Amount of $300,000 Loan (Benedetti 1&2)

Benedetti: In discussions with Kay Garry, it was suggested that we borrow “from ourselves” (from Rainy Day fund) so that Stormwater can begin working on Castlewood.

Steve Price: “On the loan thing, I don’t know, we’re going to be borrowing money from ourselves and paying it back at 1% interest … will the storm rate go up in the future … could this lead to another rate (increase)?”

Benedetti explains that the previous dollar stormwater rate wasn’t sufficient to leave reserves to borrow against. Price says he can’t support it because it will have to be paid back with interest, if miniscule, and this could lead to another rate hike, and by God, the twelve bucks a year more already makes him work way to hard (I made that part up).

Gahan proposes just flat paying for the work out of Rainy Day. He says he wants to get it done either way and is open to anything.

Stormwater chairman Brinkworth explains that they suggested paying it back as a loan. They wanted a rate increase to do more projects, but that was denied by the council. However, $300,000 up front will enable them to get started while waiting for the dollar increase to accumulate in the coffers.

Kevin Zurschmiede: For it, but wants a balance sheet and financial information. Details for the projects planned?

Answer is a Castlewood detention basin on the Mt. Tabor church/school properties. This will hold water at the upstream end of the drainage system, and let it out slowly. Also, two sets of catch basins on Castlewood itself. Landholders agree, and negotiations and plans under way.

KZ wants it in black and white.

Sealed bids being put out, satisfying Li’l Stevie’s query.

Brinkworth: Will not impact the Master Plan, but solve a problem. Castlewood project “a number one priority.”

Benedetti: She’s seen the budget numbers, and Stormwater is doing okay staying within boundaries.

Coffey: If you have to borrow it, not as good as if we appropriate it. Maybe we should just finance it outright.

Brinkworth: That’s more than we expected.

Price: He’s paying two more dollars on his garbage and now he erupts because no one will guarantee that there’ll be no rate increase.

Brinkworth: “I can’t guarantee what I’ll be wearing tomorrow.”

Price: “Why don’t we just give them the $300,000?”

Messer: It’s just 1%. Rainy Day money is for an emergency … aren’t we always saying they’re supposed to be self-financing? Let Stormwater borrow and pay back with slight interest.

Coffey, grandstanding, says he knows of other places that are worse than anyone Brinkworth quotes, primarily because Coffey has no training. Or something like that. Says he knows more about it. “We need to ahead and get started.”

Brinkworth thinks that they can have two big ones knocked out in two years, but Coffey says that isn’t fast enough, and KZ pitches that the loan should be forgiven if the work gets done on time.

1st vote on it!!

Price votes aye even though there was no guarantee made. Huh?

2nd: Also unanimous.

A-09-21 (Gahan)
Placed on the agenda today after press time. Wasn’t posted. Deals with which monies will finance the water bailout giveaway program. No discussion.

G-09-21 Amendment to Ordinance A-04-73 Passed 12/6/2004 Setting Policy and Fees for Fairview and West Haven Cemeteries (McLaughlin 3)

The leather jacketed Price objects here as so often before. Fee jumps are too large. People may have to get jobs if this continues.

3rd reading:
No from Price, otherwise unanimous. Passes.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS:

Sewer work session to answer questions? Coffey puts it in Gahan’s hands. Sewer Board wants EPA to be involved, but this can occur later.

Coffey wants an executive session to discuss litigation with the storm water. Benedetti says a hearing already is scheduled (January 4) … Shane says it’s a hearing. Coffey apparently didn’t know this. Coffey still wants a discussion.

Coffey wants John Gonder to consider a committee for the ballpark issue.

Coffey wants to know whether the Kelly PUD has expired? Scott Wood says yes, an 18-month clock ticks down, and it reverts to its previous state of zoning. It has expired, and so it’s a dead issue.

A global moment.

INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL: Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

Anybody wanna bet this won't be a topic of conversation at tonight's City Council meeting?

Turning the past into a future.

As much needed conversations about the role of preservation efforts begin, the C-J's Diane Heilenman highlights how New Albany's historic surroundings can be used in pursuit of a more viable, creative future. The New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project pays homage to our past but refuses to dwell in it, instead choosing to celebrate contemporary art and culture as a vital part of the city's public life, the same as it was centuries earlier.

What happened so many yesterdays ago is interesting and informative. How that knowledge will be interpreted and recast as a part of tomorrow is the reason we work and invest. It's instructive then that Heilenman, as perhaps the area's best known art and culture commentator, was drawn to the most modern of the various media thus far proposed for the project as the lead in telling the story.

Ebb and flow, indeed.

HEILENMAN: The Rising: Art project tells the story of New Albany

Sometime in late April, the Ohio River will flood the front wall of the new YMCA building at 33 State St. in New Albany, Ind. It will continuously rise (and ebb) for at least a year — but leave your snorkel and fins at home.

The “Flood” will be a large-scale video production on the building's facade created by noted new-media artist Valerie Sullivan Fuchs of Shelby County, Ky.

She is one of the first five artists selected for the New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project, which will eventually place 20 works around downtown that will tell the story of the city's history, in time for its 2013 bicentennial celebrations.

* image courtesy of the New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project and Valerie Sullivan Fuchs

Shell.

For more of Ed's images, go here.

My visit to PassiveAggressiveLand.

(It’s a non-revitalized neighborhood of the Open Air Museum)

Normally I wouldn’t do this, but this time I will, primarily because it’s been a wonderful weekend.

An anonymous writing critic spewed at Voice of the People, and I responded, although not to the critic’s satisfaction. The topic is my column in Thursday’s Tribune: BAYLOR: Long ago in Slovakia.

Seeing as teeth marks from a hooded canine wannabeen remain imbedded in the denim of my jeans, here’s the “dialogue” to date.

Anonymous said...
What does being an Atheist have anything to do with St. Nicholas day or having Germanic heritage in a Slavic nation? What was the point or the need for that information? What was the author getting at? The column would have been a very good one if wasn’t for the first two paragraphs. It would have been par with the one about Armistice Day.

Roger said …
St. Nicholas Day is on the 6th. The column was published on the 3rd, hence (a) the topical reference to St. Nicholas in the intro, and (b) the fact that it also was mentioned in the text about Slovakia.

Anonymous said …
I sorry but your response doesn't answer any of my questions sufficiently. They are just oblique answers. The intro was irreverent or not necessary.

Roger said …
Shrug. I got paid to write it, and you didn't. 'Nuff said, hooded one.

Anonymous said …
I think the questions are viable. You have accused others of making irrelevant comments etc. What does being an Atheist have anything to do with St. Nicolas Day? What relevance did it have to do with the story? How is being paid, to write in the Tribs editorial section, have anything to do with explaining the relevancy of being an Atheist and St. Nicolas Day. If you are paid shouldn’t your column be of the highest quality of writing? The Trib will print just about any person’s letters or allow anyone to be a guest columnist when they make you a staff reporter or editor then you may have something to brag about. And yes, I do read your column along with others please help me understand yours better.

Roger said …
I suspect I'll eventually address your "questions," probably at NAC, but not here.

What is the one thing held in common by each of the roles you cite, from letter writer to columnist, and including editors and reporters?

They all sign their names to their work. Consequently, I'm not interested in a serious conversation with passive/aggressive anonymous folks like you. Create whatever rationalizations or excuses you like for anonymity -- indulge yourself and be creative -- but it doesn't imply that I have any responsibility to cooperate with the indulgence.

I stand behind what I say and write. If I'm correct, there's credit, and if wrong, there's blame. So it goes. Why should I waste more time than the five minutes its taken to write these words to "discuss" something with someone who doesn't share my ethos?

It's just all Bledsottian to me (it's a new word I just invented).

Thanks for reading nonetheless.

---

As for the more blatantly obvious passive/aggressive deficiencies of the anonymous writer (“Bledsottian” references this trait), these can be discussed another time. For now, I’ll try again to answer the questions asked, because for some of you, it may provide an insight into the creative process.

Following two weeks of poking sticks through the bars of the Open Air Museum’s theistic and holiday season cages, I wanted to write something counter-intuitive, but that still referenced the preceding discussions. The holiday piece from 1991 seemed appropriate, but it needed an introduction.

The common theme chronologically was St. Nicholas Day, which was mentioned in the original story, and which would be coming three days after the publication date of the column. To even the most casual of observers, and as such traditions go, St. Nicholas Day in America is traceable to European immigrants, primarily those from Central Europe.

Recalling that ethnic Germans once lived across broad swaths of Central Europe, including areas that are now “Slavic” nations (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia), and in non-Slavic Hungary and Romania, and that my family background comes entirely from German immigrants, it didn’t strike me as far-fetched to combine these elements in the introduction.

Anonymous asks: “What does being an Atheist have anything to do with St. Nicolas Day?” and “What relevance did it have to do with the story?”

Having devoted previous columns to atheism, and having established my family’s Central European roots in theism, with the strong possibility that like the people I met in Slovakia, earlier generations of my family would have celebrated St. Nicholas Day in the immigrant tradition, there is attendant irony in my having emerged these many years later as an atheist. There’s also the fact that a century ago, it might not have been very healthful for a family member to confess atheistic leanings openly, which today can be done without overt fear of persecution apart from anonymous critics.

Hope that helps. I’d love to sit down with you and drink a beer while discussing it further, except you refuse to follow the blog policy of disclosure, and hoods remind me of the Klan.

Things like that just don’t help the nectar go down.

Thanks for reading.

In today's Tribune: Vic Megenity on historic preservation.

Vic Megenity's guest column in today's Tribune ostensibly is a statement of intent with respect to the current fundraising drive to create a museum for the preservation of the late Fred Conway's antique fire equipment.

However, the paragraph reprinted below forms the crux of his argument, which extends past the specifics of the proposed fire museum. It is a lamentation of narrow-mindedness in the past, and an appeal for historic preservation in what strikes me as the narrowest sense of protecting and preserving buildings.

That's fine, and I'm for it. At the same time, as we've recently considered in this space, there are broader elements to historic preservation, and in order to make this point, I'll be blunt: How does the idea of spending more than $500,000 on restoring the Cardinal Ritter house appear to the residents of the transitional neighborhood surrounding it?

It's encouraging to see a dialogue under way with respect to this and other aspects of the urge to preserve. Speaking only for myself, preserving a building without context in a more pervasive societal sense strikes me as a less than conducive exercise. Should the North Annex building be adaptively reused? Yes, but not only because of what the building itself is, or perhaps symbolizes.

What will its reuse mean to the people of the area? Historic preservation pitched too narrowly can come to resemble dilettantism, especially when it comes to the perception of the clueless Philistines we typically elect to office -- like the ones who mechanically signed the demolition permits to facilitate the 1960's era destruction that Vic so effectively decries.

We all must do a better job of casting preservationism in a sense of how it will impact the day-to-day life of the individual, who is otherwise disposed to stand on the sidelines absent a sense of personal involvement with the principles being espoused.

But pleae feel free to disagree with me or to expand upon this brief digression. For more on historic preservation in Floyd County, see reporter Harold Adams's story in today's Courier-Journal. Here is Vic's excellent column.

MEGENITY: Antique fire equipment presents unparalleled opportunity for city

New Albany has a checkered past in preserving its most valuable assets — the history and heritage of the City. When I first moved to this community in the early 1960s to start my teaching career, I was amazed at the rich history that I found. Steamboat building, glass works, iron works, woolen mills, to name just a few important industries. The architecture was outstanding with scores of 19th century buildings, but then something terrible happened. During 1961-62, I observed the demolition of four historic buildings: (1) on the southeast corner of State and Spring Sts., the County Courthouse; (2) on the southwest corner of State and Spring Sts., the City Hall; (3) on the northeast corner of State and Spring Sts., the fortress like Jail, made famous by the hanging of the notorious Reno brothers; (4) on the corner of Spring and Pearl Sts., the magnificent Post Office.

I tried reading anonymously ...

... but found that the mask garbled my words.

Photo by Andy Terrell, from last weekend's reading relay at Destinations.

Weekend NABC update: Food, beer, art, outside sales and our webmaster.

In the upper right hand corner of NA Confidential's main page, there is a photo link to the area of New Albanian Brewing Company's web site, where you can sign up to receive NABC's weekly newsletter. Here's a delectable excerpt from this week's edition.

Chef Josh Plans Weekend Surprises for Bank Street Brewhouse Dinner Menu

Josh Lehman, our Chef at the BSB Brasserie, is getting playful again and is already shaking up his dinner menu, at least for this weekend.

Look for Pork Ribs in a roasted red pepper barbecue sauce and served with cabbage and beans to join the dinner lineup on Friday and Saturday evenings. Chef Josh is also planning to offer a Shrimp and Grits dish with sauteed shrimp, locally cured ham, poached egg and polenta; Beef Short Ribs with roasted shallots, mayonnaise and a baguette; and a Country Ham Plate with ham from Kentucky's Newsom Farm - Josh says they offer some of the best ham in the country.

Josh is also considering a Smoked Salmon and Potato Salad for Sunday.

Obviously, I'd like for you to dine at Bank Street Brewhouse this weekend. However, my ulterior motive here is to note that I haven't lately seen many weekly brewery/pub newsletters as comprehensive as NABC's has become, and you should know that this has nothing much at all to do with me.

Rather, it is the work of New Albanian resident Michael Burp, who also is our webmaster. Michael's been laboring in obscurity, and I want to give him a nod and thank him for all the hard work. He's a valued member of the team, and we appreciate it!

Other NABC weekend highlights:

Saturnalia Winter Solstice draft fest, beginning today at the Public House.

The Louisville-KY/Female-Art-Collective/85470041544?ref=mf">Female Art Collective's Mustache Bash, Saturday at the Public House.

NABC has beer on tap at 50 locations in Indiana and Kentucky.

LEO's Sara Havens profiled Bank Street Brewhouse's Sunday build-your-own Bloody Mary bar, and in Velocity's "The Beer Issue," both Bank Street and our original location were noted.

C-J: "Floyd Prosecutor says Camm will be tried again."

Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson said Thursday the state will retry David Camm.

We don't know how much it will cost, but we do know that a third trial will lead to another book, and maybe expanded television coverage.

Nonetheless, it had to be a tough, tough call for the elected prosecutor who insists that justice has nothing to do with politics. This time around, can he perhaps see to it that the trial has nothing to do with inadmissable evidence?

No cynicism here. Just fatigue.

Today's Tribune column: "Long ago in Slovakia."

I enjoy keeping them guessing.

BAYLOR: Long ago in Slovakia

The winter's first snow has come and gone, and although we didn't get very much, it was enough to add a cheerful hazard for pedestrians in the forms of sleds, multitudes of them, some of old fashioned wood construction, others of molded plastic. More sleds than I've ever seen have appeared as if by magic from closets and storage rooms, to be pulled by their brightly outfitted young owners and steered at breakneck speed down any and all available slopes, inhabited or otherwise.

Northeast corner of Spring and Ninth.

The siding's been off for more than a year, and the when the big fleet vehicles are parked on either side of the corner, it's a sight hazard for driver, cyclist and pedestrian alike.

Should we care? Or is it free enterprise to let this house rot?

I'm all hung up.

In today's Tribune, Vince Garmon defends Christianity and God against the "hang-ups" of the columnist (me).

LETTERS: Reader respond to columnist’s religious ‘hang-ups’

Roger Baylor has been quite candid about his hang-ups with religion in his columns over the past couple of weeks. I am an evangelical Christian, and I must confess that I do not necessarily agree with a few of Mr. Baylor’s opinions. But, his Nov. 19 and Thanksgiving Day columns have made me think a lot lately about the poor impression that people who call themselves Christians can leave on the rest of the world.

In the end, Vince disagrees with me and I with him, but the significant thing to me is that he actually read what I wrote.

That's shocking. Dave Matthews might want to take heed.

Market Street Fish House and Connor's Place will combine.

Today I saw the sign at the Market Street Fish House, and it says what we'd been hearing. It's moving across the street to become part and parcel of Connor's Place, now to become all-in-one.

Reopening date for the new kitchen is December 15, and the menu at Connor's reportedly will retain some of the items (sandwiches?) available there previously. As always, we wish Dave Himmel and the Connor's crew the best of luck.

Note: I ran into Matt Bergman later at First Tuesday, and he says that the search for a new tenant is under way.

Develop New Albany's First Tuesday (today), plus a listing of upcoming downtown events.