Reach Out

Every one needs a hand to hold on to
Every one needs a hand to hold on to
Don't need to be no strong hand
Don't need to be no rich hand
Every one just needs a hand to hold on to

                                -- John Mellencamp
                                 or
                                    JCM
                                 or, maybe just
                                   J C

___________________________________

A couple nights ago the New Albany Common Council met in what seemed to be one of its particularly thin proceedings. No ordinances were under consideration. The administration had asked for nothing. Instead we were asked to weigh in on something The News and Tribune likes to refer to as, (and why not paraphrase?) "a meaningless, empty, expression". The empty rhetoric this time was directed at those in the state legislature who would commandeer the state constitution for political purposes (HJR-6); as bait, or shiny objects for those who would see danger, and thus political advantage, in the pursuit of  happiness by "others". Others may be refined, or defined, to include q-words, f-words and anything other than me- or we-words.

As I looked out into the gallery that night I was humbled by the hope the "others" had placed in us--their local government. As The Tribune is wont to say, the New Albany Common Council  weighing in on state or national issues is pointless, perhaps grandstanding, but certainly, ineffectual. But for the time the others spoke in our chamber, I, at least, glimpsed just a bit of representative democracy. For that brief time, I think,  people looked to us to hear their message of disaffection, their hope for inclusion in that which the majority takes for granted. They looked to us to speak for them, our friends, our neighbors, our un-acknowledged kin.

Most of the City Council did speak for the hopes of those who appealed to us. I am proud that our  Council took this step before it was simply part of a well-worn path. And those who did not advance the hopes of those in attendance should not be vilified. Acceptance and tolerance are hard-won in our society, and our world; empathy is a blessing not universally bestowed.

Hasn't everyone, at one time or another, felt outside of the mainstream, or felt that he or she won't fit into society's lines? House Joint Resolution -6, seeks to play upon the fears, prejudices, and intolerance of  of those among us who can, through ignorance or convenience, distance themselves from those whom they see as unlike them, and thus unworthy of the fruits of our earthly bounty. HJR-6 would seek, for political advantage, to make the road of life more difficult and lonely for the "others" among us, those not like us.

Councilman Phipps hit the nail on the head the other night when he said, " a hundred years from now we will be judged on what we did during our brief time here." I am proud to have spoken up for tolerance, and commend those others who also spoke up for it. As Mellencamp said, "everyone just needs a hand to hold on to." I'm proud to have extended a hand to hold on to, rather than presenting  a fist of rejection, and I commend the other Council members who also offered the hand of acceptance.

If one questions whether we should withdraw the helping hand of love, acceptance, and tolerance from the "others", I challenge you to find the "others" in this picture.           

HJR-6, Heading South?

 

Thursday the City Council will consider the  resolution printed below.

 

While it is true that resolutions are simply statements, with no force of law or consequences backing them up, it is also true that at times making a statement is preferable to silent acquiescence of the status quo.

 

For those who have followed the debate surrounding the proposed constitutional amendment to which the resolution refers, numerous articles and statements have pointed out that Indiana faces a choice between a retrograde stance and an open-minded acceptance of modern America. Last Saturday's Tribune had an excellent offering from Morton Marcus about the choice we face, I tried to link to it but couldn't navigate the terrain.

 

A carefully chosen phrase is in the resolution, "states of the Union".  We seldom hear of the states of the Union these days, and it harkens to a time reminiscent of the Civil War. Many of the policies pursued recently in Indiana suggest that many of our leaders would be more comfortable in any of the Confederate redoubts south of the Mason Dixon line.  A friend has begun to refer to our state as Indissippi.

 

We need not go down that road.

 

________________________________

 

WHEREAS:  Certain legislators in the State of Indiana have offered for consideration an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Indiana, House Joint Resolution-6, regarding a definition of the State of Marriage within our state, and

 

WHEREAS: This constitutional amendment has been forcefully opposed by a leading educational institution of our state and by some of the most respected and renowned corporate entities within our state, Indiana University, Eli Lilly and Co., and Cummins Engines, among others, and

 

WHEREAS:  One of the primary reasons these institutions have opposed the constitutional amendment, beyond its inherent intolerance, is the effect it would have on commerce, competitiveness,  and the recruitment of open-minded, talented people needed to further the goals and aims of these institutions, and

 

WHEREAS:  The flow of history in the United States is in the direction of greater openness and inclusiveness, more tolerance and acceptance of persons of diverse views, backgrounds, heritages and orientations, and

 

WHEREAS:  Greater acceptance of diversity of all kinds is a Twenty First Century extrapolation of the views put forth by our Eighteenth Century founders, and

 

WHEREAS:  Current Indiana law: 

IC 31-11-1-1

Same sex marriages prohibited

Sec. 1. (a) Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may

marry a female.

(b) A marriage between persons of the same gender is void in

Indiana even if the marriage is lawful in the place where it is

solemnized.

 

 obviates the need for a restrictive constitutional amendment,  as detailed in House Joint Resolution 6.

 

NOW THEREFORE:  The Common Council of the City of New Albany, Indiana, by this resolution, does hereby express its opposition to HJR-6, and

 

FURTHER:  Asks that our Hoosier state, by rejecting HJR-6,  be seen among our sister states of the Union more as a center of tolerance and acceptance of human differences, than a place of exclusion and intolerance, and

 

FINALLY: That our state constitution not be used as a political device to further the aims of one political party in its appeals to the intolerance and fears of some citizens of our state.    

As the World Turns

 

 

"You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

--Bob Dylan

 

 

From another correspondent...

 

"I don't know who keeps bringing up the idea of two-way streets for Spring,
Market, Elm, Bank and Pearl....

 

The traffic has moved very well for 30 years the way
the streets are now...

 

Get the People in the community
and the business community as a whole involved with their opinions...

 

Do they really have some concrete reason as to why it is better than the traffic pattern we now have in the city."

 

______________

 

I've heard the discussion of the merits of two-way versus one-way streets for a number of years now.

 

 Although my memory is not faultless, I believe I remember a time when Elm Street was two way. (my grandfather lived on Elm Street, and I spent a lot of time there. I listened to the adults discussing it) Similarly, I believe I remember Market Street as two way. I don't think I remember Spring Street as two way.

 

I have a hard time believing that the conversion of one way streets to two way streets is a panacea. Likewise, I can't believe that the conversion would be a problem for the City either. I've seen any number of befuddled drivers practicing the ultimate in traffic calming--putative one ways--as they make the incorrect assumption that an unfamiliar New Albany street is patterned after most streets they have encountered in their lives, as they turn the wrong way onto a one way street.

 

Too many accommodations have been made to the automobile. Downtown New Albany is a part of the city predating the car. Ironically, it is the part of the City most encumbered by hoop-jumping on behalf of the car. A vibrant, functional, walkable city allows automobiles into its space on its terms, not on the interlopers' terms. For too long the car has held the upper hand in the ordering of our downtown.

 

 

Some of those who have crafted the recent and recognized rebirth of our city have asked that two way traffic be the norm. Just as in the past, those holding the high cards, called the turn to one way streets, now we must let those holding the hot hands direct us forward.

 

I'm sponsoring a resolution to forgo studies to tell us that one way streets should yield to two way traffic. We paid for a study in 2007. Let's follow that study which said that Pearl, Bank and market Streets could be immediately converted to two way traffic. Mr. Rosenbager, at the last Council meeting , stated that given intersections could be studied for a "couple grand" apiece. Two intersections on Spring Street, at Vincennes and at State Streets, and two intersections on Elm Street, also at Vincennes and at State Streets may need additional study to allow for their conversions. If that's the case, we may be facing a cost of something considerably less than $20,000; a far cry from the $60,000 figure suggested by some.

Can't we direct that additional spending in a more productive direction?

 

Implementation of the two way conversion itself, will cost something. Much of this cost will be covered by federal funds, we are told.  New signs will be needed. The existing street lights will need to be adjusted for two way traffic. New striping of the streets will be required. We don't need to spend new money on a study to reiterate what we've been told before, and what many of us know to be true.

 

If we need additional input into the decision to convert or stay with the status quo, let's use the charrette as our method of gathering information and forming consensus. We have the expertise to chart our own course and make our own decisions on this rather simple matter. 

 

Let's today, make our own way.      

 

 

Monolithic Indifference

Let's open up the old mailbag...

 (originally written as one post, now divided for your  convenience)

Our first correspondent disagrees with the notion of a resolution before the Common Council of the City of New Albany. This resolution is titled, " Resolution Recognizing the Value of Human Labor in the Collection of Tolls in the New Bridges Project". Our correspondent avers,

 "Again, the bridgeS project sucks.  I just can't see how a few tolling jobs would even pay for itself, considering all the problems it would create, much less give us a return on the project as it now stands.

What am I missing?"

 

What you may be missing, dear reader, is the value of the light of day shone upon a fingerprint-less heist. You may fail to recognize that something close to $3 Billion will be withdrawn from our local economy with scarcely any return to that economy, in the form of daily jobs on that specific project, for the next thirty or so years. Those jobs-not-filled represent all of the daily activities in the lives of citizens-not-added to the ledger of participation in our collective well-being.

 

Those jobs-not-filled represent debts-not-repaid to the veterans of our serial wars. Unfulfilled  are opportunities to help those wounded, damaged, returnees who can't quite work their way back into our society.

 

You may be missing the intangible value of calling attention to the fact that those who lead the Bridges Authority, and claim to speak on behalf of others have never once, truly, listened to the wishes of many of those on whose behalf they claim to speak.

 

You may miss the fact that in the face of monolithic indifference, a body of elected officials has the opportunity to say to those who will not listen, simply, that, "if we had some say in this process we might consider that those whom we represent have to live, they have to feed their families, they want to participate in their communities. And, to do those things they need jobs. And, since this project is designed to extract nearly $3 Billion from our lives, we should be compensated in some small way. We value funding the necessities of life over convenience, speed and efficiency." 

 

A body of elected officials has the opportunity to make that statement. A simple statement will not cause the indifferent ones to move away from their chosen path. Efficiency and speed; the drone warfare of commerce and travel will out. But, a simple vote to say that, at least in one of the communities, we see what is happening, what is planned, what we value as a metro region; a simple vote is not asking too much from the elected officials who represent the ones who won't be heard. 

Your Money's No Good Here

Jimmy Buffet's heading out to San Francisco. The white pants are being put away. Plaudits and platitudes about the heroism of the workplace echo throughout the land. It is Labor Day.

Here along one border within the nation, we are bowing to the supremacy of speed. We are allowing the bottom-line geeks who have somehow become transportation planners to determine that we need no hand-to-hand contact to float the Two Bridges Boondoggle. We shall, as those grandees determine, engage in the transportational equivalent of drone warfare. The over large Two Bridges plan has an over large price tag which must and will be funded by intermittent heists of the populace hereabouts. (Set aside for now that New Albany will bear the brunt of increased pass-through traffic of the cheapskates who don't want to pay an extra eight dollars to visit Aunt Ginny or buy something in Indiana.)

The  choice method of collection, which only the bottom-line geeks chose, is NSA-style gantries that collect photos of people travelling under them, and then sends a bill to the address listed on the license plate. Or it collects data on the number of trips and deducts money from a prepaid account. Or it gets a signal from a transponder carried by frequent bridge users.

The hands-free stick up is the next best thing to off-shoring jobs. It may even be more egregious than off-shoring jobs,  since no jobs were created in the first place.  The nation and the region  has a veritable army of unemployed persons who could benefit from a job as a toll taker. The nation has an actual army of discharged, damaged, and disillusioned veterans from its serial wars. On another National Holiday the land will echo with plaudits and platitudes about the sacrifices and heroism of those who served our country in the military. Why not put up or shut up, and allow dignified work as a toll taker to help these soldiers reenter society? Why are these jobs seen as something to be so assiduously avoided?

Speed. Efficiency.

At one of the recent events held at the Marriott in Clarksville by the meme troupe of the Bridges Project, I asked why there are no toll booths. Why, in light of chronic unemployment, and in light of re-assimilation problems for veterans do we not, at least, have the prospect of getting some jobs out of the deal? Since the project has been force-fed to the locals, designed and built according to those on high, why not, as Mary Poppins would say, just a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down?

I asked the questions of a member of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. His response was that in the interest of speed and efficiency toll takers are passé. They are an unnecessary impediment to people barreling through the region. Those unemployed are of no concern in the grandee scheme of things. In yesterdays Courier-Journal an article about IBM quotes a professor of Law, "We don't build companies to serve Wall Street. We build corporations to provide goods and services to a society and jobs for people." Should not even a higher expectation apply to publicly-funded, publicly-owned projects?

The Transportation Cabinet representative said the gantries are needed to promote efficiency in transportation. I wish someone had thought of that when the discussion involved light rail. 

Waiting For Good Dough

Years passed in our little town aside the Ohio River. Years of decline layered upon years of decline. Even a few years of false starts passed in the same town, before they were layered over by more decline. During one of the false starts I remember watching an evening of mud wrestling--at the Grand. One of the young girls who maneuvered in the pit that night had to take her bows quickly, because she had to,"get showered, and shampooed, and get to work at The Dodge House", as the owner of the Grand, the emcee of the evening explained.

Apparently those days have dropped off the calendar for good, unless we are now in some extended false start, which will end one day only to find us, once again, roaming a deserted downtown looking for dubious forms of entertainment, with no hope of a decent meal or a good brew.

During those days in New Albany, roughly coinciding with most of the latter third of the Twentieth Century, commercial activity in the downtown area was mostly a memory. The action was in the malls. "Buy local" was an admonition that would have been hard to actualize. One who hoped for a day when New Albany would be home to numerous, good, downtown restaurants would likely have been accused of living in the past. If one had spoken of a day when beer and wine of local origin would be served in good restaurants downtown, one would have likely been called delusional.

And yet, here we are today. Go to downtown New Albany today and find independent restaurants serving good food, good beer and good wine. That the wine and beer is locally produced is icing on the cake. These restaurants are a sign that New Albany has crossed a line between what was and what can be; a line separating decline and abandonment from reclamation and renewal.

But as much progress as New Albany has made, and I hope continues to make, one glaring absence in the culinary scene is seen. Where's the good bread?

New Albany has graduated to a level of appreciation for good, independent restaurants. Our citizens' palates have been cultivated to appreciate craft beer and local vintners. I believe we have reached a point where locally baked, artisanal bread can be introduced into this city.

As we sat down to supper last night, my wife and I both remarked on how good the Pug rolls from the Blue Dog Bakery were. Bread is, after all, one of the oldest staples of the human diet. It is also, in the hands of an accomplished baker, one of the simplest delights.

As the wall of anti-commerce, in the form of tolls and construction delays, between New Albany and Louisville moves closer toward disruption of our regional market, I believe a golden opportunity awaits some talented entrepreneur to open a good bread bakery here. If the owners of the Blue Dog could be enticed to locate here, that would be wonderful, but I sense their hands are full.

The people of our city have responded enthusiastically when good quality food and drink is offered. We have broken the pattern of always choosing the lowest common denominator in dining. This would have been unheard of only a few years ago. Is it too much to think New Albany might now have arrived at a point where the staff of life might earn a higher, artisanal and local expression? I hope the wait will soon be over.             

Open it Off-Broadway?

The Complete Streets workshop today in Jeffersonville was a good introduction to the basic concepts of this tenet of modern urban planning and design. About 40 people were on hand for the workshop, which had an intended focus on Jeffersonville, although the basic ideas are applicable to most cities, and certainly New Albany.

Because the adage is correct that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, I came away with the idea that New Albany's fist step toward complete streets should naturally be to introduce these design elements into the downtown street grid. Upon reflection, however, I think we may actually have a better chance of success by first working on THE street of Uptown-- Vincennes Street. This street cries out for help. Some of the merchants on Vincennes have literally cried out for help as they try to make a go of it on that once-close runner-up to Downtown's bustle. With Downtown's persistent signs of rejuvenation, it's a good time to roll out some assistance to Uptown.

Downtown has benefitted measurably from the Riverfront Development District, which equates to the cheap liquor license zone. A similar helping hand has not been extended to Uptown, unless one counts the elimination of commercial structures across from the high school in favor of parking spaces for students, a heaping helping of auto-centric hamburger joints, a no man's land on the approach to the moribund K & I bridge, and more than enough vacant storefronts, as a formula for prosperity.

The work required uptown to bring about Complete Streets could pay off relatively quickly  because a smaller area is being tackled. Businesses there could use a shot in the arm as little attention has been paid to the area since Downtown has perked up. New Albany could support two commercial districts in the inner city just as it supports numerous commercial areas heading out of town. And a successful rollout of Complete Streets in Uptown could act as a good demonstration project before the Downtown is targeted.

While focusing on Uptown may be the first step toward Complete Streets, an even more preliminary step, perhaps the analogous step of putting on one's shoes, would be a commitment or an ordinance directing all new development to follow the precepts laid out in a Complete Streets model. Years ago, when I fist served on the Plan Commission, I questioned why we always dictated that a developer build a sidewalk unconnected to any other sidewalk. Since that time some of those "sidewalks to nowhere" have been matched up with other sections of sidewalk to make functional walk ways. Likewise, the incremental bits of Complete Streets can be incorporated into the design of  new developments through the Planning Process, and one day those pieces will join to make a walkable, workable city for all forms of mobility. But to get there we need a plan and a commitment.

Once we've made that commitment, we should get the people from Uptown involved in planning, and work to make Vincennes our first Complete Street. We can build from there. And in the meantime, we can add elements of Complete Streets throughout the city during reconstruction and repair.