Ten years ago, I was in the process of running for mayor of New Albany as an independent. I lost, but let’s never forget that I received more votes running as an independent in 2015 than Dan Coffey did in 2019.
You’d correctly imagine that the deck is stacked against anyone running for mayor outside the comfort of two major political parties. Worse still, ten years ago, the ancestral committee that runs New Albany’s “peculiar institution” of Harvest Homecoming did its level best to make it even harder by refusing to let me, as a candidate, walk in the parade as a way of honoring my campaign pledge of improving walkability.
That’s right: ride a car, or stay away.
Following is what I wrote at NA Confidential the day before the parade.
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Me?
I just want to walk the parade route tomorrow, because that’s what walkability is all about.
It’s about walking.
As of Friday morning, walking the parade route is an option being denied me. I hope this changes.
Before I explain this in greater detail, know that I’m sticking with my 2015 resolution not to re-ignite the annual controversy over Harvest Homecoming, New Albany’s annual autumnal civic festival, best known for its “booth days,” when downtown is given over to a temporary street festival format.
I can compromise on my own two feet, thank you.
I just want to walk the parade route tomorrow.
The usual arguments about Harvest Homecoming, pro and con, have been hashed and rehashed. Revolutions of rising expectations are never easy. In the absence of principled municipal governance, nothing’s going to substantively change any time soon, and yet I’m satisfied that a younger generation of Harvest Homecoming’s management truly grasps the need for evolution and accommodation.
Reform is a process, and while painfully slow, there is movement on some fronts. Let’s accept progress in this process, and celebrate this fact.
As for me, I just want to walk the parade route tomorrow.
I’m especially grateful to Art Niemeier, who joined the group effort planning tomorrow’s Biers on Parade at the Farmer Market, and has been invaluable. I don’t want to say or do anything that might compromise my gratitude to Art. We’re in possession of an idea (parade day festivities) with significant future promise, one uniting multiple entities. It’s a good thing, indeed.
And me?
I just want to walk the parade route tomorrow, because walking is the basic form of human movement.
It comes down to this: As written, Harvest Homecoming’s parade rules do not explicitly acknowledge the possibility that an independent political candidate might participate.
There is a clause restricting the use of convertibles to current office holders, and another confining non-office-holding candidates to their political party’s respective floats.
I hold no office, and I have no party.
Given that I’m probably the foremost local proponent of walkability, I just want to walk the parade route tomorrow.
First I was asked by the committee if it could provide a vehicle, and I said thanks, but no thanks.
The walkability guy in a truck? It doesn’t make sense.
In the beginning, all I wanted to do is walk the parade route tomorrow with a group of supporters. Just walk down the street, nothing more, while making the point that it isn’t unusual to walk.
Because it isn’t.
Except when you’re told it cannot be allowed.
At some point during the past months, it was mentioned that perhaps bicycles could be included, though while it would be nice to have bikes represented, actually riding one in a slow-moving parade doesn’t compute, although if the idea helped move the negotiation, I thought it acceptable to at least consider pushing a bike.
Although what I’d like to do is just walk the parade route.
As of yesterday, the committee is holding to its interpretation of rules that aren’t explicit in the first place, and has offered this ruling: I can’t walk, because candidates for office must use a wheeled vehicle, and if I choose to ride a bicycle, which is suitably wheeled, there can be only five bikes total.
Have I mentioned that nowhere in the committee’s rules is this wheeled clause mentioned?
Me?
I just want to walk the parade route.
I’ll walk alone, if that helps.
As the candidate of walkability, all I want to do is walk the Harvest Homecoming parade route.
Granted, irony never plays well here, but note that at a time when walkability is one of downtown’s best hopes for continued regeneration, the Harvest Homecoming theme in 2015 is Hot Rod Harvest.
Please, can I just walk the parade route and illustrate that life in this city can be about people, and not just their cars?
All I want to do is walk the parade route tomorrow, just me alone.
Surely this isn’t an imposition.
Thanks for your consideration.
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So, what happened on that parade day 10 years ago?
There was talk of forming a bicycle phalanx, but the slowness of the parade would have meant lots of pushing bikes (which they offered to allow — no walking, but pretending to ride a bicycle was fine). It was as bureaucratically clueless as any small-town atrocity, ever. But a decade on, I couldn’t remember myself how it all played out, so I scrolled around what’s left of the defunct NA Confidential, and found this. It seems I decided to work and drink beer (the beer garden idea didn’t last).
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Thanks, everyone. You were reading and sharing yesterday, and I think the point was amply made: Me? I just want to walk the parade route tomorrow.
What it comes down to is this: The parade committee’s word is the eleventh commandment, and to be a politician aspiring to use nothing except his own two legs to traverse the parade route is to risk arrest.
And if I’m to be arrested, I prefer it occur as an act of principled civil disobedience in support of a cause slightly more important than a boring parade. One picks certain battles, retains a share of dry powder, and goes to the mattresses only when necessary.
Daily life in New Albany is provocation enough, isn’t it?
Today I’ll be at Biers on Parade, the New Albany Restaurant and Bar Association’s pop-up beer garden at the Farmers Market. It runs from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
