Saturday, April 22, 2006

Truth is stranger than fact: CM dramatically refuses dictation, opts for self-arousal as the preferred means of upgrading city attorney position.

Earlier at NA Confidential, the question was asked:

Uh ... do I have this right?

Here’s part of the answer in the form of the Tribune’s account of Thursday evening’s fractious city council meeting:

Attorney job passes first vote; Neighborhood groups rebuffed in request for tabling, by Eric Scott Campbell (News-Tribune).

Tribune reporter Campbell describes the Wizard of Westside’s crowning outburst:

(Greg) Roberts approached the podium and repeated the appeal for time to research. When (CM Mark) Seabrook asked Roberts why he thought the bill wasn’t being tabled, Roberts indicated the bill was not a product of the forums.

(CM Dan) Coffey shouted, “I’m not dictated to by a neighborhood forum!”

Previously, having hijacked the full-time city attorney idea for his own nefarious and purely political purposes by means of a nifty stratagem that he obviously considered worthy of television’s famed “Matlock,” CM Coffey piously cited the jilting of his impoverished fiefdom as a prime motive for his pique:

This request appeared to have bothered Coffey when it was time to take action on the bill. He did not table it, and he chastised forum organizers, saying they did not invite his West End’s neighborhood association.“We compromise the biggest neighborhood association there is,” Coffey said.

This breathtaking revelation comes as great news to the many neighborhood forum organizers, who recently have had more luck finding the gunman on the grassy knoll than they have locating any evidence of a West End neighborhood association that exists apart from a slip of yellowed paper in CM Coffey’s wallet – or a figment in his cobwebbed imagination.

But in a moment of uncharacteristic candor, CM Cappuccino acknowledged something that was painfully obvious to all in attendance:

About the request to table, Coffey said, “I’ve seen politics in this tonight.”

Boy, has he – and he should know better than anyone, because the politics he cites are all of his own making, but as we’ve noted here for quite some time, when it comes to CM Coffey, it’s rarely if ever about the greater good of New Albany.

Rather, what good there is to be found within a Coffeyite proclamation must be defined somewhat more narrowly, and on occasion, it’s so scarce as to entirely elude detection.

If there is a West End neighborhood group, a rude awakening is in order: Yet again, you’re being marched like lemmings to the precipice … and guess who’ll be standing aside, watching with paternalistic pride, as you hit the rocks?

I attended the first neighborhood forum and observed the wonderful discussion, one masterfully moderated by Dr. Newman, which concluded with those present expressing unanimity in researching the city attorney position and the possibilities inherent with expanding it.

I’m told that this research is ongoing. A second forum has occurred and another is planned, and forum participants are in the process of scheduling a meeting with Mayor James Garner and the current city attorney, Shane Gibson, to discuss the issue.

A promising whiff of civility, cooperation and – gasp – democracy was in the air, and apparently such a flowering, however modest, even naïve, posed a mortal threat to the pompous ego of New Albany’s foremost ward-heeling schoolyard bully, who has determined to forcibly seize the city attorney issue from the citizenry, to gut it, to deprive it of any meaningful context whatsoever, then to merrily wave the flattened and bloodied carcass for political gain during the next electoral cycle.

Quite simply, there can be no other explanation than this for the Wizard of Westside’s latest act of brazen and self-serving chicanery.

Should we refuse to join Dan Coffey’s perpetually abused constituents in drinking the loutish councilman’s favored brand of Kool-Aid? After all, to do so might well endanger good-faith efforts already expended toward steps to enhance ordinance enforcement.

Even if the diligent research currently being pursued provides clear evidence that an expanded city attorney position is the correct first step in the direction of easing the symptoms of the New Albany Syndrome (and as readers already know, not all see it as such), has the reality of CM Coffey’s savage co-opting of the measure tainted it beyond redemption?

Would it be subject to the councilman’s further politically motivated manipulations? We all know they're coming.

In short, has CM Coffey’s cynical embrace of a position that is contradicted by his every breath rendered it DOA?

I don’t pretend to know the answer to these conundrums, and I want to see the gist of the findings and consider the opinions of the researchers. Compromise should never be ruled out.

But one thing is clear: It would be a mistake, pure and simple, to fall for the councilman’s transparent ploy. There's no sincerity therein -- only conniving.

We must be very, very careful.

5 comments:

The New Albanian said...

See Bluegill's comment in the thread appended to the previous post.

G Coyle said...

I second Bluegill comments and ask everyone to remember to keep "eyes on the prize"...in this case a legal mechanism to hound slumlords and other civic miscreants into code compliance.

Rick Carmickle said...

I was not able to attend the city council meeting this past week, and it seems that I missed a fireworks display that is only second to Thunder over Louisville. How sad that the councilman from the west end has the ability to turn a meeting into something just slight of a Jerry Springer show!

Local citizens have joined forces in a forum to investigate the best way for our city management to proceed with ordnance enforcement. Not because they want to put more government on the people, not because they feel citizens can not make decisions about how the laws should be enforced. They want to put in place an enforcement program that is not political, should not be able to be corrupted (see last statement), and is transferable from administration to administration.

It is a shame that the councilman from the west end has showed his hand again, his display during the council meeting was nothing more than a spoiled child who says “if I can’t be the captain of the team, I will take my ball and go home!” I have polled about 25 different households in the West End and no one had a clue about a neighborhood association in the area. No one had been to any meetings, or had seen any literature informing the public about the neighborhood association. Maybe this association is a closed door, invitation only association that can only be seen by members that have passed some bizarre form of initiation. In regards to the past two meetings held in the White House Centre, they were well advertised to the public, and there is no reason that anyone should have missed them. As I understand it, this forum was a product of three well developed and informed neighborhood associations, associations that promote their meetings consistently. They always have notice of meetings in the local paper, and on the newest form of communications, BLOGS.

I have known Danny Coffey for several years; he’s a hard working man, for his family, his constituents, and the city in general. However, his demeanor in council meetings leaves something to be desired. Danny does come off as a bully, as a spoiled child, and I for one wish he would stop and think before he shouts out at public meetings. It only makes him look incompetent and the neighborhood he serves, as backwards bumpkins that can’t fend for them selves. Sorry Dan, but I have been a resident of the West End all my life, as well as my family and friends, we know that this part of town is thought to be the poorest and impoverished of the city. You know as well as I do that is not the case. The residents of the west end may not have the most income or wealth of the city, but we have the some of the biggest hearts! Dan you may not represent me per se, but you do represent my family, as an ambassador of the west end now located in the second district I ask you, no I implore you to please represent your people, the people who elected you and not your self interest, nor the interest of campaign contributors.

I understand Dan doesn’t read the blogs, but he has folks that make sure he is aware of traffic on the information highway. So to those folks, he has my number tell him to call me! I didn’t mean to belittle or demean by any manner, just speaking from the heart!

Highwayman said...

Rick C,
Thank you for your response.

Although it has been hinted at by some who should know better, none of us involved in the Forum are looking for special treatment for our particular neighborhoods. Our goal is for the city as a whole to benefit from whatever action is ultimately taken.

Personaly, I could give a short tailed rat's postier about the politics of it! We just want our city cleaned up and our streets and allys made safe for ourselves and our children.

We welcome participation from all of New Albany to help us acheive those goals.

Once again, Thank You for hitting the nail on the head!

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Well said, Rick. I always find it unusual, and detrimental to his constituents, that the only person who ever suggests that West End residents don't belong in problem solving efforts is Dan Coffey. He always tries to frame issues as us against them, even when people like you are sitting in front of him. Given that half the people who raised me are West End natives, I know better. And whether Coffey tries to keep them away or not, so does everyone else.