NEW HARMONY SCHOOL PROPERTY FOR SALE!

THE NEW-HARMONY GAZETTE.

NEW HARMONY SCHOOL PROPERTY FOR SALE!

by: Dan Barton, publisher February 2019 Edition

This issue continues to go round and round. Town Council president Blaylock said at January 15, 2019, New Harmony Town Council meeting that, “There’s a story going around that the fellow buying the former school property wants to build an asphalt plant. Don’t believe for one second that the town would sell to somebody wanting to build an asphalt plant. I’d be totally 100% against it, rest assured. If you read what you read in the papers/letters to the editor, you’ll be chasing your tail around.” Once again it looks like Blaylock is the only one in New Harmony chasing his tail around.

There were various descriptions, depending on where and what you read, of exactly what Blaylock said at the January council meeting, but after reviewing both what I wrote in the New Harmony Gazette’s January edition, the Posey County News report of his statement on January 22nd, and David Campbell’s letter to the editor of the Posey County News in December 2018, I find no evidence anywhere that anyone said the, “Fellow buying the former school property…” was attempting to buy it for the purpose of building an asphalt plant or using it for the purpose of manufacturing, storing or producing asphalt. Nowhere!

What I said in the New Harmony Gazette was, “ He (Blaylock) only received two bids on the former New Harmony School property. One bid was for $80 thousand dollars from Lupfer Equipment, LLC. Blaylock didn’t bother to announce that name at the Council meeting. It was later learned that Lupfer Equipment is listed as being owned by Joseph Lupfer of Cynthiana. It’s identified as asphalt paving company.”

Of course, it’s possible that Lupfer Equipment does not use asphalt to pave with, as most other paving companies do. Maybe Lupfer uses other materials instead; concrete, bricks, paving stones or white rock. In Washington D.C. I’ve heard it said that companies even pave with gold, but we wouldn’t expect that in Posey County. I wouldn’t want to leave any of my readers with a misimpression by using the term “asphalt paving company” and imply that Lupfer would be producing asphalt on the school property. I mean it’s within the realm of possibility that they don’t use asphalt at all. If using the term “asphalt” left anyone with a misimpression, then I retract the word “asphalt” from my January writing. But Lupfer Equipment LLC. is indeed listed as a “paving company” in the public record, to be accurate.

The fact is that Blaylock has never said who the bidder was for the $80 thousand dollar bid. That information was gleaned from David Campbell’s letter to the editor in the Posey County News. Campbell was complaining about the use of heavy equipment by the paving company and running it through the streets of New Harmony and on the former school property. Campbell’s concern was about the damage these trucks would do to the school property parking lot and the town roads. Nothing about an asphalt plant.

Another letter sent to the editor of the Posey County News and also to the New Harmony Gazette by town resident Mrs. Ray Huelsmann complained about the traffic that would be generated by a paving company owning the former school property and being so close to Murphy Park. Her letter follows this article. It said nothing about asphalt production.

The point here is that Blaylock’s statement about newspapers is not an accurate representation of what was said in any newspaper account. It’s his attempt at political sophistry. He wants the public to think that the Press is being unfair to him regarding their criticism leveled at him about his constant mismanagement and mishandling of the care and marketing of the former school property. Maybe he’s just not getting it. Maybe he wants to shift the direction of discussion away from the comments about his bungling of the marketing and sale of the former school property. As far as what any bidder plans to do with the property, Blaylock has never revealed what any of them intend to do with it, or even who they are. It’s Blaylock’s secret!

He says that the newspapers will have the public chasing their tails. He sounds like he is trying to discourage the public from reading the newspaper accounts of his Town Council meetings. I guess he believes that the public should just take his word for it. That’s an option, but an unsound one. It’s advice that goes against the very nature of our nation’s founding principals. I say, “Read the newspaper accounts of the Town Council’s meetings! Read all of the newspaper accounts! Read the Town Council minutes prepared by the Town Clerk/Treasurer! Compare them! Better yet, go to each and every Town Council meeting that you can possibly attend and really be a part of your town, not just an anonymous bystander who is simply willing to accept the word of Alvin Blaylock! You will then know the truth! You will then be able to decipher the real truth from fiction.”

What this paper and what the citizens of New Harmony who attend the Council meetings have been urging Blaylock to do for at least the past year, is to persuade him that unless the former school property is not brought to the full market by a competent and honest real estate agent or broker, it will never realize it’s true value. The Town of New Harmony will then be forever shortchanged.

To consider selling the school property for as little as $80,000, which is $1.42 per square foot, or less, to anyone, is unfathomable. That would be like Blaylock selling his home for $2,500 dollars. Not likely to happen!

Rod Clark, a former New Harmony Zoning Administrator, asked Blaylock at the January meeting if he could explain why he hasn’t listed the property with a real estate agent. Blaylock said, “We was trying to go through the steps that the state mandated. The bid process comes first. The real estate agent part is next.”

Once again sophistry. Blaylock is sidestepping the question with an inaccurate answer. At the December council meeting, when the “steps the state-mandated” had been met Blaylock still pushed for rejecting the bids and rebidding the property at the level of the lowest bids that had been offered. He could have instead asked for a motion to list the property with a real estate agent. Attorney Bauer said so. He didn’t! Those are the facts. I doubt that he was not aware of the facts when he gave the misleading answer to Clark’s question in January.

Clark went on to ask if there was something in the state regulation that was keeping Blaylock from listing it with a broker. Blaylock’s answer was, “No!”

“Then why haven’t you done it?” Clark said. Blaylock sat looking blankly for several seconds and then said, “Because the Council hasn’t chosen to do it.” That is not an answer that the public deserves after months of delays and procrastinating by Council President Blaylock!

Changing the subject won’t change the equation, Mr. Blaylock! You are on the road to underselling the former New Harmony School property. Change directions!