If She’s Innocent, Who’s Guilty?

By now, the New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety, Mayor Garner, and City Attorney Shane Gibson will have in hand all the submissions for operating the household refuse collection services for 2006.

But there sure seems to be a lot of sub rosa maneuvering going on. The Gang of Four are up to the same old dirty tricks again. When told last spring that there was a hole in the ship that is New Albany, the gang proceeded to start digging holes in the keel. When a sail needed hoisting, they cut the lines.

Now, we discover the allegation that one or more city council members is tampering with the sanitation contract, claiming to have secret knowledge of the unknowable.

Every bidder, and every resident of this city, is entitled to a bidding process that is fair. These bids were sealed, and opened only this morning. Yet, the manager of the pink blog claims to know in advance not only the low bidder, but the winning bidder.

But she claims not to have personal knowledge, but rather, knowledge secretly passed to her by a member of the city council.

We know her facts are lies. What we don’t know is who the liar is. Is Laura Oates the liar? She did retract her false report, but only in part. Apparently, she still maintains the truth of her assertion, but “apologizes” for the authority she cited.

Now, she is alleging felonious conduct on the part of a city council member. You can be sure the attorneys for those companies (and the union, if applicable) who fail to obtain the city sanitation contract, will want to know who that (those?) member(s) is (are).

Did BPW chairman Tony Toran impermissibly open these bids? Did another member of the board of works? Did a clerical employee tamper with sealed bids? Did a city council member use undue pressure on some lowly city employee to obtain knowledge of the bid specifics?

I am myself satisfied that the bid packages themselves were not tampered with. But I’m not the judge and jury on that. Mr. Toran’s ethics are above reproach, smears and slanders notwithstanding. No city employee would risk their job and risk jail time to leak information to a city council member about sealed bids.

Therefore, there are only two possibilities. Oates is lying. Or her sources lied to her.

The lie is exposed. The attempt to interfere with the bid process is a felony. The question is, who committed the felony – Oates or the elected official? Disinterested speculation as to who might be the “favorite,” and even journalistic digging to ferret out from the bidders their proposals would be permissible, if unhelpful, but when an elected official pretends to have inside information and spreads that around, it is clear malfeasance and grounds for removal from office.

The potential for bidders being extorted into shading their bids, or the potential to deter present and future bidders from participating in a sham process, are serious violations of the public trust. New Albany needs for its bid processes to be not only clean, but to appear to be clean, too.

I believe that the next city council meeting is the time for each member of the city council to come clean. While we’re at it, let’s interrogate Mr. Toran and the rest of the BoW to see where the truth lies. While denials by all nine won’t necessarily implicate Oates as anything other than a gullible tool, it could be the lie that ends a political career.

If, as I suspect, the member(s) believe themselves fully justified in either a) engaging in felonious tampering or b) extortion of bidders, they should step forward and explain themselves to the council, and to the people.

Beyond the legal ramifications, which may have deterred the union from submitting a legal bid, it was a cruel lie to dump on the employees of the sanitation department on a holiday weekend. For those to whom Ms. Oates has credibility, it only poured fuel on the fire. But come to think of it, that was probably the motive. Too bad the political gamesmanship crossed the threshold to criminal malfeasance.

In this instance, I believe Ms. Oates. Will Keith Henderson?

Credibility Gap

Anonymous rumor-mongering is one thing, but the operator of the pink blog has taken her credibility quotient down yet another notch. I would have thought that impossible, but indeed she not only floated another conspiracy theory, backed by her “fact” that the contract for sanitation services in New Albany has already been awarded in advance of the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting set for tomorrow.

She attempted to back her claim by asserting that the award announcement was published in the “legals” classified section of The Tribune on Friday. When challenged on her assertion, she restated it, defending herself against the charge she was disseminating false information. Here, verbatim, is here insistent defense that she is NOT wrong.

…Despite accusations of ‘flawed information’, the contract for privatizing sanitation services has been awarded to Rumpke. This was posted in the Legals of the Friday Tribune…(signed) east ender.

What possible motive would she have for making and re-making such an outlandish claim, then further attempting to fool her readers by referring to a nonexistent newspaper notice?

Speculate at will.

For affirmation of the untruth of her allegation, which would have raised numerous objections from this quarter had it turned out to be true, note that the Friday Tribune legals were published on page B5. I have a crisp $100 bill for anyone who can show me the “legal” to which east ender is referring. Trust me folks, it ain’t there.

But then, if your aim in life is to cast aspersions, I suppose it was worth the risk to her to bluff it out. When paranoia rules your life, and you stop taking your meds, truth loses out.

By the way, the BPW&S will be opening bids to supply gasoline at Tuesday’s meeting, and that is noted in the legals for Friday.

Don’t Worry, Just Have Hope

News item

WASHINGTON – President Bush announced today that he will sign a bill providing an additional $2.8 billion for private organizations that emphasize the importance of hoping for change.

Read more by clicking the headline

Without Comment

Take a peek at Sunday’s copy of The Tribune.

The New Albanian Brewing Company, and co-owner Roger Baylor, are featured on page 1, with a strapping young Mr. Baylor posing nonchalantly before his new brewing equipment. Kyle Lowry reports.

Staff writer Greg Gapsis regales us with the news that, at least tentatively, economists expect our river counties to outperform the state of Indiana as a whole during the coming year.

Lowry comes back below the fold with yet another business profile of Main Street veterans earthlygoods.com, the online garden site operated by locals Ann Streckfus and Stephen Brown.

Page 3A offers a photo montage of Thursday’s Pillar Award winners and nominees, as selected by Develop New Albany.

And the back page of section A features a delightfully wry look at blogging by columnist Terry Cummins, who in part gazes with envy on the “in” crowd who blogs, while taking a few shots at the imperiousness of such navel-gazing.

What a difference a year makes. Click the headline for access to these stories online.

Their Man Mitch Strikes Again

CLARIFICATION: We’ve subsequently learned that the news is even worse – they’re not just privatizing, they’re shutting the facility completely (presumably to sell). Stay tuned.

In my estimation, the following is news. I can think of only two reasons to withhold this item from publication: 1) to allow 150 or more area families one last weekend without the discomfort of knowing their job security is threatened, and 2) to allow Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and his public relations staff to hone their rhetoric for a big, splashy press conference on Monday.

Strike that. I imagine Gov. Daniels will arrange to be as far away from the state capital as possible on Monday and will send out some hapless cabinet member to face the media.

A single, but reliable source informs us that the state of Indiana will announce the turnover of Silvercrest Children’s Development Center to a private contractor.

Silvercrest provides services to children with multiple disabilities and four state psychiatric hospitals provide services to children with serious emotional disturbance. Although the service needs vary by diagnoses, many children with disabilities require similar services, including:

Case management
Respite care and/or respite beds
Family counseling
Family involvement
Family training
Self help skills
Education
Group counseling
Individual counseling
Recreation/activity therapy
Medical treatment/monitoring including dietary
Assessment and evaluation
Habilitation training
Behavioral specialist staff
Physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy
24 hour a day/seven day a week consistency in therapy milieu
High control strategies
Locked units

Silvercrest Children’s Development Center, under the auspices of the Indiana State Department of Health, provides services to children with multiple disabilities. Located in New Albany in southern Indiana, Silvercrest provides services to children throughout the state, with the majority of children coming from the southern part of Indiana. By statute Silvercrest provides assessment, remediation therapy, and program development to children ages birth to 22, who have 2 or more disabilities. Children are referred to Silvercrest by their local education agency (LEA) and the average length of stay is approximately 12 months.

Services are also provided in the community for children with multiple disabilities. These services are coordinated by the local education agency or the Indiana State Department of Education, Division of Special Education, and include community services, alternative residential placements within the state, and residential placements in other states. Children with the same types of disabilities as those receiving services at Silvercrest are currently receiving services within their communities.

(Data taken from the Governor’s Council on State-Operated Care Facilities Final Report)

From that report: Recommendation #13: The Council recognizes the important role that Silvercrest plays in providing services to children with multiple disabilities. In keeping with the goal of providing services as close to home as possible, the Council recommends that the Department of Education, Division of Special Education and the Department of Health develop a collaborative plan that draw on their expertise to further expand these type of services throughout the state. This plan should be developed by December 31, 2001.

That’s the O’Bannon/Kernan solution. What does Their Man Mitch offer? And why did those particular state employees endorse Daniels in last year’s election?

Learn more about New Albany’s contribution to the care of children at the official Web site here http://www.in.gov/isdh/silvercrest/index.htm

We invite those of you who work at or with, or have been served by Silvercrest at some time, to contribute your thoughts about the idea of the state relinquishing control over the facility to a for-profit company.

For the Record

Somebody’s lying. No great surprise, I’ll grant you, but nothing more clearly demonstrates the utter inability of some people to tell the truth than the conversations circulating regarding last evening’s city council meeting.

I was there. In fact, the audience was filled with progressives. The only civilian in attendance whose progressive credentials are lacking departed the meeting before any actual business was conducted. Perhaps Tim Young Productions can persuade their client to make the tapes available to the public. I know they will verify the following report.

City Council took up an ordinance to increase sewer tap-in fees by about 40% last evening, passing the ordinance on first reading.

Beforehand, Mr. John Miller pled the case that these fees, particularly with the increase, serve as an impediment to fostering the type of housing this city so desperately needs in its core area. New Albany’s Community Housing operation offers this city the best opportunity in sight for economic development, cash inflows, jobs, and safe and fair housing. The locally contributed money triggers an additional nine times that in federal grant money to rehabilitate some of the 3,000 substandard homes in New Albany. Moreover, that $15 million then become available to leverage several multiples of additional funding for the same types of projects.

Seeking recognition during the public comment portion of the meeting, I asked the council to consider that one of the ways it could promote infill development, which I presume they prefer to sprawl, would be to calculate the rate increase in such a way that it would allow for preferential waivers, discounts, subsidies, etc. for developments that meet the objectives of the city’s five-year plan. Acknowledging the need for the sewer utility to operate on a firm financial footing, I suggested the council should amend the ordinance to raise the tap-in fee by an amount sufficient to cover such subsidies.

Mr. John Rosenbarger, who wears many hats, including planning and redevelopment, made a compelling case that such waivers can, should, and are used regularly to promote desirable development. In fact, he suggested that those very waivers can also be leveraged as a local contribution that can be matched by federal and other grant funds.

At no time did anyone in the room oppose the idea of raising the tap-in fee to meet the obligations of the sewer utility. I REPEAT. NO ONE AT ANY TIME RAISED ANY OBJECTION TO THE BOOST IN TAP-IN FEES.

Anyone who tells you otherwise…is a liar. Anyone who facilitates the same is aiding and abetting the spread of disinformation.

We’ll lay it out in numbers next week. If the current ordinance is sufficient to meet the obligations of the sewer utility, then a slight boost in the fee would give the sewer board or the council the ability to give a hand to deserving projects that meet specific criteria. NACH’s project is clearly one of those, but setting that aside for a moment, we ask: Can no one on the council envision a circumstance where the city might want to ENCOURAGE development by waiving the fee or establishing a fee structure that won’t be such a gross impediment to (really a theft from) preferred projects? If they can see it, then why not pass an ordinance that makes it possible in the future without harming the financial stability of the utility?

A Fine Night Downtown

New Albany’s Main Street organization, Develop New Albany, saw fit to honor ourr store with its Horizon Award on Thursday, Nov. 17, during that group’s annual meeting. This is one of four Pillar awards the organization gives out each year, and we are honored to be selected in our first year.

Also honored Thursday in a presentation by staff member Jane Alcorn were three other “pillars” of the community, as defined by the boundaries of the Urban Enterprise Zone.

The Redmen Club took the marble trophy for its architectural contribution to the city with the Renaissance Award. In just a short time, the Redmen built a new club building on Main Street and built it in such a way as to strongly complement the historic character of that section of town.

The architectural firm of Michell Timperman and Ritz earned the Foundation Award for its contributions to the business community.

And Al Goodman was honored with the Achievement Award, granted to an individual who epitomizes the spirit of New Albany Business.

Here are those nominated, with the “winner” in bold. I put winner in boldface because they each were deserving.

Horizon Award
Destinations Booksellers
Federal Hill Cafe
Hornblower Marine Services
Martha’s Attic
Patch as Patch Can Quilt Shop

Renaissance Award
Aunt Artie’s Antiques
The Calumet Club
New Albany Fire House
The Redmen Club
State Street Flooring
Third Century Properties

Foundation Award
Coyle Dodge
Harvest Homecoming
Kraft Funeral Service
MainSource Bank
Michell Timperman and Ritz
Terry Middleton’s Kick Boxing and Karate
The Office Supply Company
Sassy’s Flowers
Schad and Palmer
Mike Smith Firestone

Achievement Award
Al Goodman
Mike Ricke
Rich Robinson

Each of these nominees has a story to tell and I wish I had the time and space to tell it. Let them know how much you appreciate them, next time you visit. We invite you to share with us your impressions and we’ll add them on to this story.

Say What?

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city.” — Televangelist Pat Robertson, Nov. 10, 2005

That’s Dover, Pa., where voters turned out the entire Republican slate of school board members who changed their school curricula to teach the intelligent design view vs. evolutionary development of species. (Click the headline for more details.)

No matter your view of the whole squabble, I’m interested to know if anyone out there has any thoughts on Mr. Robertson’s conception of God.

It’s Not in the Water

I love New Albany. Warts and all. Here’s proof that muddled thinking isn’t exclusive to the misanthropic and “so open-minded their brains might fall out” disciples of Mrs. Anna Schmidt’s boogedy-boogedy doubletalk. See if you recognize any of these themes.

As an ill-informed pseudo-intellectual with a particular interest in the unverifiable, I’m always on the lookout for some partially thought out misinformation. So, if you have an uninformed solution to a dilemma that doesn’t actually exist, don’t bother double-checking your information. I’m all ears.

Read the rest of this opinion piece at I’m Very Interested In Hearing Some Half-Baked Theories

Stunning

The missus and I sat down to view the documentary film, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” this evening, after a successful trial run at the Farmers Market in New Albany.

If you are an adherent, an acolyte, a missionary for the Wal-Mart Way, avoid this film at all costs.

It will change your buying patterns, if not your life. Never have I seen a film that affected me so deeply. Alternating between tears and curses, I was, simply, broken by what I learned from the film.

Mrs. VH professes that she knew all of this. I did not.

For example: Did you know that while a single big “W” typically generates $100 million in sales each year, the net result is the destruction of $140 million in local business activity?

Plan now to join Constituency for Progress and Destinations Booksellers in downtown New Albany just 9 days from now. Bring a chair, a muffler, perhaps gloves, and a warm coat.

Your life will never be the same.