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| If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding. The second-most read post in blog history. |
Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy burrowing beneath the boilerplate headlines to offer unique local perspectives. March proved to be somewhat of a peak in terms of a recent trend in heightened readership, testifying to a keen interest in New Albany stories, perhaps because they’re being chronically under-served elsewhere.
The list begins with ten “honorable mention” posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1. Stats are derived from Google’s internal numbers listings.
MARCH’S TEN HONORABLE MENTION
400
ON THE AVENUES: It’s all so simple, says Jeff Gahan. Remove the impoverished, and voila! No more poverty!
It was another vintage week for home-wrecking and game-playing by the tittering, braying donkeys who populate Team Gahan’s toxic bunker bullpen (surely they’re possessed of a remarkable consistency, if nothing else noteworthy), but let’s try to disregard the latest round of slapstick and self-parody, and look instead at the purported blueprint for a “balanced mix of public and subsidized housing.”
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407 (tie)
Read the official conclusion of the Breakwater fire investigation.
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407 (tie)
The house next door is for sale. Now’s the chance to start your own neighborhood association.
It’s next door to ours, and the description here is absolutely correct: Lots of work is needed, and that’s why the price is so good.
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420
Cosmetic surgery: Horseshoe Foundation gives Jeff Gahan $5 million to spend on whatever he damn well pleases.
The down and dirty: Horseshoe is tithing $5 million for New Albany. $2.5 million is to be devoted to a westward expansion of the Greenway from its current amphitheater terminus toward the vicinity of QRS (recycling; presumably to be reclaimed), and another $2.5 toward facade grants (details undisclosed) and “beautification” in downtown, including amphitheater touch-ups.
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445
Since 2013 (and before), the Mt. Tabor Road beak-wetting boondoggle is a large millstone hung around Jeff Gahan’s neck. Mayor overboard?
It’s important to remember that Jeff Gahan did not become mayor until January 1, 2012. Before this, he served two terms as councilman for the 6th district, which includes the Mt. Tabor Road neighborhood referenced here. In short, given the time generally required to mint and plan such big ticket roadwork boondoggles as the absurdly tagged “Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project” (and I’m the one who uses too many words?), it obviously dates back into Gahan’s council tenure.
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448
About my mother’s condition.
For the past two months, Sue Baylor’s health has been failing, and these almost certainly are her final days. I hope I’m wrong about this, but facts are facts. As ever the consummately organized ex-teacher, my mother always has made her end-of-life wishes perfectly clear, and I’ve done my best to honor them.
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464
‘Bune snoozes and IL gets the scoop: “City of New Albany, residents head to court over road improvement project.”
I’m happy to see Insider Louisville step up; meanwhile, over yonder lies Hanson’s ‘Bama Folly, scooped once again. Apparently the N & T is delighted to receive tips about New Albany stories, just as long as they can’t be traced to NA Confidential. Remind me again: Why have I been sending website traffic to their advertising clickers in good faith these past 12 years? Verily, you can trust those corporate types … they’ll ALWAYS let you down.
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502
On the next ATC permit hearing agenda: Mesa: A Collaborative Kitchen and Match Cigar Bar.
COMING SOON…MESA is a state-of-the-art collaborative kitchen, featuring demonstrations by established and aspiring chefs from Southern Indiana and Louisville. The collaborative space offers cooking demonstrations and also houses a bookstore, to-go cooking dinners and a boutique filled with kitchen essentials.
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507
Clark County newspaper’s New Albany editor capably eulogizes the late Tommy Lancaster Restaurant.
Let’s give credit where credit is due, because Chris Morris excels at eulogies, whether for people or buildings (below). At the same time, it still strikes me as telling that throughout the process of the city purchasing properties in the vicinity of the former Tommy’s, the fated verdict has been accepted without question.
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577
As local pretend-Democrats whistle Dixie(crat), Gahan prepares to launch the public housing pogrom.
Indeed, Deaf Gahan is doing his part. Because what’s permitted is promoted, this pogrom is being facilitated by hypocritical pretend-Democrats, and if you’re one of them, time to stop looking away. In fact, it’s time for a good, hard look in the mirror.
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622
Breakwater fire revisited: Exactly what are the potential dangers of “Toothpick Construction” techniques?
Fast forwarding a month, articles published just this week at Fire Engineering and The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) are hard-hitting, indeed. In the first, we learn that in the aftermath of a catastrophic fire of similar circumstances in Raleigh, questions about building methods and materials are being raised.
MARCH’S TOP TEN
752
R.I.P. Josh Rodriquez.
I never met Josh, but we’ve so many mutual friends that it seems like I knew him very well. Our thoughts are with the bereaved. We’re very, very sorry.
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785
The Cosmopolitan: Turns out The Breakwater isn’t the first fire at a Flaherty & Collins development under construction.
The article is eight years old. It was anonymously written, and it is the only post at the blog. Links are broken. By 2010, the arrested man had been released for lack of evidence, and the Cosmopolitan development was completed and opened. Therefore, this link is purely for entertainment value.
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1,009
Lucky ol’ Cornerstone Engineering: Redevelopment awards $17,500 contract to explore the possibility of “wrapping the parking garage and adding apartments and businesses to the structure.”
Redevelopment Commission secretary Adam “Where the Fix Is Always In” Dickey records Irving Joshua’s strange musings on the possibility of the State Street parking garage’s adaptive reuse (from the meeting of February 14). Wouldn’t you love it if Cornerstone came back with a recommendation to convert the parking garage into a farmers market?
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1,178
City Hall describes the four major projects to be funded (in part?) through the Horseshoe Foundation’s $5 million gift.
There’ll be time for further discussion. Until then, following is the city’s press release — Team Gahan’s own words and illustrations, offered without comment.
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1,297
Mt. Tabor Road euphemism project: If City Hall looks bad, that’s only because it’s doing the damage to itself.
Colin Receveur is to be commended for pursuing every legal mechanism in an effort to compel Team Gahan to practice transparency. It isn’t just that those federal 80/20 construction grants are like crack. It’s that to Team Gahan, openness is like Ebola.
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1,766
Shane Gibson is unaccountable yet again as “City of New Albany Withholding Public Records in Mount Tabor Road Land Grab.”
City of New Albany Withholding Public Records in Mount Tabor Road Land Grab
New Albany, IN — The Indiana Public Access Counselor has affirmed that the city of New Albany has unlawfully denied public records to a landowner who is pushing back against the city’s use of eminent domain in a Mount Tabor Road expansion project.
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2,686
The obituary and visitation arrangements for Bettye Sue Baylor (1932 – 2017).
To this very day, hundreds of Sue’s former students shop for groceries, prepare meals, set their tables and even wash dishes according to lessons learned from her. It’s a remarkable legacy, and in response to popular demand, here is one variant of Sue’s recipe for no-bake cookies, which so many of her students recall with fondness.
CHOCOLATE NO BAKE COOKIES
2 cups sugar
¼ cup cocoa
½ cup milk
½ cup peanut butter
1 stick butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups oats
Mix sugar, cocoa and milk in saucepan and bring to a boil for 1 minute. Then add peanut butter, butter, vanilla and oats. Mix well. Drop onto wax paper.
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3,166
R.I.P. Sue Baylor.
Diana and I are saddened to report my mother’s passing. Sue Baylor died this afternoon at around 4 p.m. This weekend, we knew the end was close, and we’re grateful that it was peaceful and she didn’t suffer. Her body was giving out, and finally she let go.
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3,444
It looks like the demolition of the old Tommy Lancaster’s on Market is underway. Presumably, Gahanesque luxury is on the horizon.
Only the functionaries deep within the shadowy bowels of the Redevelopment Commission know for sure, but they’re not talking, and it appears the building formerly housing the Tommy Lancaster restaurant is being gutted in preparation for whatever TIF-laden grandiosity is to come.
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9,183
Matt Nash to purchase Karem’s Meats, which will relocate to Plaza Drive (off Grant Line Road) on or about May 1.
The Green Mouse has learned that 5th district councilman Matt Nash will join the ranks of independent local business owners. Nash has reached a deal to purchase the iconic Karem’s Meats, New Albany’s oldest meat market and deli.
