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It’s finally happened. The lunacy that passes for public policy in Baton Rouge has forced me to become something I swore I’d never become, something I detest: A card-carrying NIMBY.

I feel so dirty … excuse me while I shower.

Who, you may ask, is my Emperor Palpatine; what Sith Lord has turned me toward the Dark Side?

Ingolf Partenheimer.

This man with the ominous sounding name that’s linguistically more challenging than “Engelbert Humperdinck” is Baton Rouge’s traffic czar. An engineer by trade, it’s Partenheimer’s job to make sense of the nonsense that passes for our network (stop laughing!) of roads, streets and cul-de-sacs.

And it’s his brilliant idea to close a portion of Glenmore Avenue to solve a non-existent traffic problem.

Well, Lord Partenheimer, here’s what I say to your evil plan to destroy one of Baton Rouge’s few real interconnecting networks of streets: “Not in my backyard!”

For those living in Sprawl-ville, Glenmore runs parallel to South Acadian Thruway and College Drive in a subdivision also called Glenmore, though few know the name (except when the property tax bill arrives) and no one calls it that. The avenue in question runs between Bawell Street and Claycut Road It’s a lovely tree-lined piece of asphalt with a landscaped neutral ground splitting northbound and southbound traffic.

Someone, it seems, has put it into Partenheimer’s head that traffic on Glenmore is threatening life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for those in the neighborhood. So he and his DPW wonks got together, studied the city’s new traffic calming guidelines, skipped the parts on diplomacy and sanctions and went straight for thermonuclear war. It’s a decision only Karl Rove could love.

Partenheimer decreed barricades on a 90-day trial basis would close a one-block stretch of northbound Glenmore between Wells Street and Woodside Drive, denying anyone traveling on Bawell, which happens to be in a poor, largely black neighborhood, from entering the Glenmore subdivision, which happens to relatively affluent and largely white.

So who wants the road closed? Since when did the Valley Park neighborhood become Cuba? Why do a handful of Glenmore and Steele Place residents think the avenue is exclusively theirs? Does anyone really believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?

For more than eight years, my home was three blocks from Glenmore, and let me tell you: Traffic is not, repeat not, a problem on Glenmore.

Yes, a handful of people who don’t live in the neighborhood use the street to avoid traffic on South Acadian or College, but so what? It’s a public street and I challenge anyone to sit by the street on any day—other than when the St. Patrick’s Day parade rolls—and tell me there are too many cars on the avenue every taxpayer in this parish paid to build.

There are some speeders—a problem greatly reduced after a stop sign was installed at the Hundred Oaks Avenue intersection—but most of the lead-foots live in the neighborhood. My former next-door neighbor, a fabulous doctor and wonderful mother of three, becomes Danica Patrick whenever she gets behind the wheel of her SUV.

Here’s an idea: Since the various area neighborhood associations already pay the police to patrol the area, maybe the cops could write a few speeding tickets in between making nice with the residents. I’m sure they’d have no problem pulling out the radar gun if we asked them nicely.

Problem solved. A fantastically operating street grid remains intact, speeding is reduced and the tickets generate some extra revenue for the city. What’s not to love?

Ask any neighborhood resident and most will tell you the key route returning from places like St. Aloysius and Wal-Mart is to take Perkins Road to Valley Drive, make a left on Bawell and then a right on Glenmore. Once on Glenmore, thanks to a real, live street grid, there’s at least a dozen ways to get home.

If the city gets its way, we’ll all be forced onto South Acadian and College Drive—two roads that clearly can stand to have more traffic on them. Yeah, right!

Fortunately I am not alone. There are other NIMBYs amongst us. So vocal were we at a May 21 public hearing that Mayor Kip Holden announced the barricade proposal will be delayed until late June at the earliest. Another public meeting is expected.

If these arguments don’t persuade the city to change its policy, then let’s go with the standard NIMBY arguments: It will create a flooding problem and negatively impact property values.

May the street grid be with you.