One can be for the River View project or against it, although like most New Albanians, not much of a damn is given at all, but to me, the most regrettable aspect of the proposed development just might be the inexplicable decision of its proponents to describe the potential economic impact on downtown as “trickle back.”
I personally heard these words spoken at the recent public hearing at the library, and DNA repeated them in its mailing yesterday — because that’s what happens when you’re looking off someone else’s paper come exam time.
(By the way, congratulations to OSIN’s Daniel Suddeath for including the “trickle back” passage in his account of the coming council vote on inclusion of River View in the TIF area)
Understanding that historical perspective is fleeting in a place like New Albany, it must be stated for the record that “trickle” as an economic (and perhaps linguistic) principle has considerably bad (and dated) connotations, going back to the far-off 1980’s and Ronald “Supply Side” Reagan’s program to enhance and preserve the wealth of the enriched, crumbs of which inevitably would reach the poor, or so we were told.
For all the hue and cry to date, during which River View’s backers have all but suggested that the condo project with $180,000 studio flats would cure the common cold and make Charles Atlas out of the puniest of male anatomies, is it really a positive selling point to define the project’s economic benefits as “trickling back” to the remainder of downtown?
For $53 million (without a TIF pledge, it’s so far an imaginary sum), don’t we have a right to expect something more than a trickle? Is the usage of this term unintended buffoonery, cluelessness, or just plain bad writing?
Given the stock caricatures of beautiful, white, Merlot-sipping stock traders gracing the back page of Mainland’s prospectus (above), I’m guessing the latter. The acclaimed conversation from yesterday continues here: Mr. Haney, DNA support “trickle back” from River View.
