NEW ALBANY, In. (WAVE) – As New Albany’s mayor continues to refuse to release the costs of the Providence Mill Dam litigation, one of his litigants is pushing back.

Southern Indiana nonprofit River Heritage Conservancy and Ecosystems Connections Institute have been granted a permit by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to remove the Providence Mill Dam in 2021. New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan continues his refusal to tell just the council the city. how much money was spent in the legal battle with the non-profit organization to block the removal of the dam.

The non-profit said the dam removal was an “in addition pilot project” to the Origin Park they are already building.

“Our vision is to create a park, a public park, that will connect the communities of Jeffersonville, Clarksville, New Albany and southern Indiana, and frankly, it will reach all the way to Louisville when it’s all said and done,” Dennis Schnurbusch said. , CEO of RHC.

But one community pushed back every step of the way, the city of New Albany.

In a recent letter to city council members, Mayor Jeff Gahan lays out his reasons for refusing to release the cost of three years of litigation to block the River Heritage Conservancy’s removal of the dam on Silver Creek.

Among the main reasons is Origin Park, a project the mayor claims will privatize public land.

“I think the thing that bothers me most about this statement is that it introduces misinformation as a deliberate fear tactic about what we’re doing,” Schnurbusch said.

RHC leaders say the park has nothing to do with their litigation with the city. Only dam removal, a separate project, is what the legal battle is all about.

However, Mayor Gahan referred primarily to Origin Park and what he believes will negatively affect New Albany in an effort to defend his position of not releasing the total spent in litigation with RHC. A majority of the New Albany City Council approved a resolution in September asking the mayor to release the costs of the litigation before the budget vote.

“Premature disclosure of these costs could compromise the City’s legal position and impede its ability to negotiate or litigate effectively. I therefore respectfully urge the Council to defer any action on the disclosure of litigation expenses until the matter is fully resolved.”

In his letter, Gahan made several claims about the project, along with the charge that it would privatize public land, saying it would be a “disservice to the residents of New Albany.”

“If, the city of New Albany and the other cities regionally will benefit from this project,” Schnurbusch said. “I mean we estimate that up to $2 million annually will visit the park. It will mean jobs, visitors and hotel stays. I don’t know how you look at that and say it’s going to hurt the residents of this area.”

He referred to RHC as a “private out-of-county corporation,” to which RHC responded that they are a non-profit made up of board members who are residents of both Floyd and Clark counties.

Gahan also argued that there would be a fee for public lands and Silver Creek access if the park were built. RHC denied that too. They said the park is made up of land they have purchased or have a memorandum of understanding with the property owner to manage and support without a fee to enter the park. The fees would only be applied to the optional “opportunity” parts of the park, which they said would help the park sustain itself.

“This is public land. We have an agreement with the city of Clarksville on how it will be operated,” Schnurbusch said. “There was never any intention to charge for silver creek. This has always been something that is free. It doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to the community.”

RHC leaders said any effort to include New Albany in their plans has failed. Now that there is litigation, what happens to the happening dam will be up to the courts.

“We are at a point where we are diametrically opposed. Either stay or leave. We say it works,” said Lanum. “Assuming everything goes as planned, whether we tear down the dam or it has to stay for whatever reason. Origin Park will happen next. I mean it’s 430 acres on two miles of the Ohio River with no commercial traffic on it. We build this no matter what.”

IDNR and US Army Corps of Engineers they are also involved in litigation with the city after Gahan ordered emergency work to be done on the dam earlier this month after numerous incidents in the area, including the drowning of 14-year-old AJ Edwards Jr. on Memorial Day. In early August, the mayor filled the base of the dam with rocks in an action officials said was illegal. Litigation with IDNR continues in court in February.

While the mayor declined to release the cost of the litigation, the nonprofit released the cost: $592,741.14 over three years. They estimate the cost to the city to be between $1 million and $2 million.

“We know the number is pretty high (for the city),” said RHC board president Kent Lanum. “They have three law firms, four lawyers over the years that have billed them. That doesn’t include the engineers and everyone else involved in the project. Just for me, if I were a citizen of New Albany, I would be upset because transparency is the key to effective government, and once you stop doing that, you start to lose your legitimacy as a leader of a community.”

Gahan claims that all the costs of the dam litigation “were allocated based on current budgets” and the administration “did not go over any budget.”

However, several city council members signed a letter expressing their disappointment at the mayor’s lack of response to their request for information before the budget vote. The letter detailed that while legal privilege prevented the release of this information, “it was never communicated or explained — formally or informally — to the board as a whole.”

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