Pay No Attention To That Man Behind the Curtain

Though it all occurs behind the curtain, it’s pretty obvious that the key to cracking open the New Albany city treasury to further your pet project (and to concurrently feather a few simpatico nests) is to know the shibboleth.

The good folks at Merriam-Webster give us as definition 1a the following: a word or saying used by adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others as empty of real meaning.

Other primary definitions from that dictionary team explain shibboleth as an old idea, opinion, or saying that is commonly believed and repeated but that may be seen as old-fashioned or untrue; and as a word or way of speaking or behaving which shows that a person belongs to a particular group.

What is New Albany’s shibboleth?

Say it with me: QUALITY OF LIFE.

I was taught that shibboleth was a Hebrew word meaning “stream,” and that its use was a kind of separating password that aided the men of Gilead in their war against the Ephraimites.

Here’s how it’s told in the NIV version of Judges 12:5-6:

• 5The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Ephraim. And it happened when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” 6then they would say to him, “Say now, ‘Shibboleth.'” But he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it correctly. Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. Thus there fell at that time 42,000 of Ephraim.

In the hills of Tennessee, where I was raised, we had our own shibboleths. Though they were separators of the knowing and the ignorant, they seemed to be failures to pronounce a word or place name and marked an outlander as surely as anything could. The county seat on the approach to the Smokies is Sevierville, named after John Sevier, a Revolutionary War soldier and Tennessee’s first governor. Outsiders will ask how to get to Seevurs-ville, instantly identifying them as strangers and always eliciting a chuckle. Around here, Versailles, or even Charlestown serve as shibboleths.

Yes, the password to the city’s vaults is “quality of life,” though pronouncing it is never the “catch.” And the words spoken in the name of quality of life often seem to be said only by adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others as empty of real meaning.

I often feel as if I’m in some fugue, some dream state, when I see the price tags on what this sect likes to call “quality of life” projects. Just this week, in regard to the city’s problem with speeding, I was asked “Doesn’t that fall under ‘quality of life?'” At first, I didn’t recognize the shibboleth, it having been so abused and misused, but I quickly recovered with an enthusiastic “Yes. Yes it does.”

Had this city ever had a discussion about spending on quality of life issues, I would have been there – with bells on. In fact, I and others have been talking about nothing less for almost a decade, only to have our ideas dismissed.

I’m known to be ardently opposed to the $20 million bond issue this city is about to sign for to pay for a rec center and a pool. Not that I’m opposed to recreation projects. Far from it. But a $9 million pool and another $11 million borrowed for amorphous recreation projects is simply irresponsible. It’s far too much money, especially the pool, which will become little more than a private country club for those who can pay the toll. This city will NEVER get out from under that debt.

And I’ve offered alternatives that would achieve 5 times the benefits at, maybe, one-third the cost. But no, the sect chants in unison “Quality of Life, QualityofLife, qualityoflife” and all outsiders are expected to sit down, shut up, and mind their manners.

Case in point: I’m the only candidate for city council who made the construction of one or more dog parks a platform during the last municipal election, so my bona fides aren’t suspect. But when I see that the city intends to spend $150,000 on a dog park, I’m incredulous. That’s simply outrageous.

And now we hear that at least $275,000 will be spent to erect another canopy at the Farmers’ Market. $275,000 to ensure that businesses that don’t pay taxes here will have a place to conduct commerce 200 hours a year. We rely on the Farmers’ Market ourselves, but there’s simply no justification in spending that kind of money.

You want a list of quality of life projects that will yield much higher returns at much lower cost? I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction to find fully fleshed-out proposals that have been put forward by citizens but that have been rejected for sectarian reasons.

This is our money, folks. And we are pissing it away in the name of some doctrinaire and blinkered perception of what actually builds and enhances the quality of our lives in this river town.

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I will be publishing a report on New Albany’s speeding scandal on Monday evening. Thank you for your patience.

Dr. Cannon Offers a Considered Opinion on Bond Issue

I’ve been blessed over my time in New Albany to have had numerous lengthy conversations with Dr. Dan Cannon. I’m happy to see him speaking out about the bond issue just approved by New Albany’s city council. While I don’t necessarily subscribe to everything said below, I do consider it as a useful contribution to the discussion. This letter to the News and Tribune adds appreciably to that part of the discussion going on in the community (as opposed to that going on exclusively on the Third Floor of the City-County Building). Before we allow the independent redevelopment body to proceed, there need to be many more such discussions.

New Albany resident urges wiser spending

It is with considerable trepidation that I venture my opinion concerning the construction of a sports center espoused by Mayor Jeff Gahan and some members of the City Council, as reported in a recent edition of the News and Tribune.

Have these people, our elected representatives, lost all sense of fiscal responsibility? Our children and our grandchildren will be burdened by this indebtedness. Recreational facilities may be desirable, but they are not essential.

Streets, sidewalks, drainage and sewage, the homeless, the poor, police and fire protection, education, etc., are ongoing problems in our city, the solutions to which are far more essential than another recreational enterprise, which would serve only a small proportion of our population. The operation of such a complex is costly to say nothing of its maintenance, all of which are ongoing expenses and we have not mentioned the millions of dollars in interest which must be paid along with the almost $20 million in original cost.

Our governments, local as well as national, already are so overburdened by debt that the interest alone amounts to a considerable portion of income. Is it fair to us, to our children, and to their children, to obligate us, as well as our descendants — who have no voice whatsoever in the matter — to pay for such nonessentials? Why must we have instant gratification? What has happened to responsible government? Why can’t we save the money necessary and pay cash when we build it? (The total cost would be less than half).”

Mr. Mayor, members of the council: Please, spend our money wisely. Do not burden us with debt. Do not burden our children with debt. Be thrifty. Be fiscally responsible.

— Daniel l. Cannon, M.D., New Albany

Electronic link to Dr. Cannon’s letter

In case anyone wonders, Dr. Cannon and I have not spoken to or otherwise communicated with each other in many months. Thus, our respective opinions have been composed and expressed independently. As you will know, I believe that more people should express their opinions on this bond issue and the projects for which we are about to go into debt. As for the aquatic center, I do not believe the people of New Albany want it or need it.

Pragmatic View Should Trump Nostalgia

In my fight to stop the onrushing passenger train that is the Gahan Aquaplex, I do not question the good faith of the mayor or the other proponents of building a new outdoor swimming pool.

Trust me, on several other matters, I am perfectly willing to question the mayor’s good faith or lack thereof, but this is not one of them, absent any whiff of public corruption in the decision-making and contracting process.

As I do a head-count for votes on the council to proceed with what I think is a reckless plan, I see a representative body sitting around the hookah inhaling a cloud of nostalgia.

Adults of our generation (and I believe I am now older than all but 2 council members) recall with gladness many sunny days gathered with our friends around a public pool. The public pool provided socialization, relief from the heat, a place to try out personalities, and a place to plant a marker along the sexual spectrum. Oh, and it provided some jobs to the children of the well-connected.

I’m sure there’s an element of “if only” in the calculations of pool supporters. If only we had a public pool, our drug problems would be more manageable. The sheer escape from stress would promote happiness and decrease crime. If only we had a pool, people would again take pride in our city.

If only.

Pool as panacea won’t fly. I believe a public pool, if built, would serve as a monument to foolishness. I “close my eyes with holy dread.”

But here. Samuel Taylor Coleridge said it better than I ever could, though he tells the story that this poem, literally, was inspired by inhaling opium from a hookah.

KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Fast Track is Wrong Track

Reactions to my call to slow down the race to build a new outdoor swimming pool have been encouraging, to say the least.*

On council member who was wrongly believed to have harkened to the “all aboard” call has corrected that misimpression, telling us he is withholding judgment for the time being. That, my friends, is precisely what I’m calling for.

Some smart people have provided me with additional talking points in support of my recent blog post. But then, I would consider people who support my suggestion to be smart, wouldn’t I?

And that puts a fine edge on the point of my previous post, which was amplified Monday when the News-Tribune published it as a guest column.

It is that willingness to listen to people who agree with me that I see in the Gahan administration’s push for a new pool now.

Among my personal acquaintances, N-T columnist Matt Nash has been the most vocal in insisting that New Albany should place a high priority on a new swimming pool. Nash was and is an ardent supporter of Gahan. His father, Warren, a former mayor himself, is the current mayor’s closest political advisor and sits on the all-powerful Board of Public Works and Safety.

Of course Mr. Gahan is going to listen to his political supporters – the Nashes included – but that does not mean that he or they are right.

It’s time for transparency. It’s time for discussion. Without that, I fear, as I previously stated, that we’ll awaken to a new reality before the citizenry has even begun to consider what’s best for New Albany and its residents.

The experiences of other cities are relevant here. I’ve asked the local newspaper to examine the economics of the pools in neighboring Clarksville and Jeffersonville and report on them as part of its editorial push in support of the Gahan project. They, frankly, have more time and tools to do that than I do.

I’m researching alternatives and will be reporting on that shortly, but in the meantime, here are a few bullet points which we all should be able and willing to debate.

PROPOSITION: There is no discernible demand for a new outdoor swimming pool. A key piece of evidence is the below-marginal use of the now-closed Camille Wright city pool in its last 20 years of operation.

PROPOSITION: Families today do not desire to use a community pool, but if they do, they are not willing, as taxpayers, to pay the public costs of building, maintaining, and operating such a facility.

PROPOSITION: With the advent of year-round school in the local public system, an expensive public pool facility would see even less use than the old pool did during the relevant season. A 4- to 6-week pool season would hardly justify the expense of an outdoor pool.

PROPOSITION: With an admission price of $6 a day per person and the requirement that an adult guardian accompany all minors under the age of 14, the economically disadvantaged will be unlikely to patronize the pool.

PROPOSITION: Public opinion would not rank a swimming pool as a high priority for city projects, even if the list of projects were limited to purported “quality of life” undertakings.

PROPOSITION: Spray (or splash) parks are exceedingly popular, offer affordable admission costs of from $1 to $2.50 a day, and the costs of building, maintaining, and operating them are at least an order of magnitude less costly than a traditional outdoor swimming facility.

PROPOSITION: New Albany, counter to Mr. Gahan’s suggestion, could instead build multiple spray parks, including in existing parks facilities, and provide accessibility to many more residents and visitors. Hotel tax revenues could be a primary source of funding for at least one of these parks.

Every taxpayer should examine these propositions and pick a side. If, as I suspect, most of us would endorse most or all of these propositions, then it’s incumbent upon us to make sure our representatives don’t commit resources to an outdoor swimming pool.

*The exception was an anonymous person who appears to be an ardent supporter of the mayor’s Xanadu-like “quality of life” projects, no matter what those projects might entail. This online commenter appears to believe that anyone who did not or does not praise the mayor is immediately disqualified from commenting on public issues.