Friday, December 19, 2008

Open thread: City council meeting of Thursday, December 18.

I'll plug in the media links as time permits. Meanwhile, if you attended Thursday's meeting, let us know what happened.

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Here's the 8:45 a.m. update from Grace Schneider of the Courier-Journal.

New Albany will tighten adult-club regulations

With about 40 members of an anti-pornography group looking on last night, New Albany City Attorney Shane Gibson told the city council that he has enlisted a legal expert to help draft a new ordinance to help tighten regulation of adult-entertainment businesses.

It strikes me that as is the case with Cleopatra's Adult Bookstore, the II Horseshoes now will benefit from the city's inadequacies with respect to (a) writing coherent ordinances, and (b) enforcing them. I

n effect, both establishments are grandfathered in, with future competitors precluded, and enforceable rules coming into effect after the businesses have staked their market niches.

They may be guilty of flagrant bad taste ... but they ain't stoopid.

8 comments:

Matt Nash said...

It was kind of a boring meeting. There was a lot of people there that apparently were just there to clap when Mr. ROCK got finished speaking (which was put off until non agenda comments).

They debated way too long on whether one house should get historic district status and then voted unanimously for it.

When the time came to vote on pay for elected officials Price and Zurschmiede voted against with no explanation even after Coffey pointed out between 2nd and 3rd readings that everything was staying the same.

When Shane went to explain what steps they were taking toward a new Adult Business Ordinance Coffey again wondered how this could possibly happen without anyone knowing. Shane explained that they would not need a building permit unless they changed something structurally to the building. Which created a debate between the councilman and the attorney on what constitutes a structural change to the building.
Can anyone confirm that II Horseshoes has a new dance floor Coffey seemed to think they did.

Then Mr. Ulrich wondered if anyone had any complaints or first hand knowledge of anything "wrong" going on at the "II Horseshoes" no one was sure. He pointed out without any nude dancing all of this was pointless. Probably the most profound statement of the night.

matt

Amy said...

Some notes that I took from the meeting which proved to be a fun and free date; Coffey said "redid", we learned that Five Guys Burgers and Fries paid 30,000 dollars for their sewer package, and Mr. Rock wanted us to "protect our families and children" from the harmful affect of adult entertainment.

O the holiday joy of striking fear into the hearts of the community.

Bayernfan said...

Does Councilman Coffey know how completely out of touch he sounds when he says over and over "How could this happen without anyone knowing"???

Highwayman said...

Earlier in the week in comment section the "Voice of the People" blogsite our very own NAC editor posed the question.... "Where is a Wiccan when you need one?"

Well be not dismayed Roger for there really is a Santa Claus!

Turns out that ROCK's legal mind is a gentleman named Wickens.

Don't ya just love irony?

As has been the case for most of this past year, the more entertaining was the aferglow Council Meeting at Studios following the "official" on the third floor.

During a review of the 2008 legislative session CMP Gahan once again stated his position that on a scale of 1 to 10, equal voting districts would rank no higher than 8 in terms of importance for our fair city.

Constitution? Who needs a Constitution??

HO-HO-HO! Merry Xmas New Albany!

Iamhoosier said...

Matt's account is accurate.

I'll contribute just two words for my account.

The meeting--hypocritical
Post meeting--despicable

Unfortunately, I was one of the two who made up the post meeting part.(no, the other one wasn't highwayman)

The New Albanian said...

IAH: Despicable? Hmm. Private briefing?

Highwayman said:

During a review of the 2008 legislative session CMP Gahan once again stated his position that on a scale of 1 to 10, equal voting districts would rank no higher than 8 in terms of importance for our fair city.

And to think, here was a case where someone else did all of CM Gahan's work for him, leaving the council with valuable time to pursue novelty lighters.

Larry Kochert must have left some radioactive deposit in that chair. Anyone have a pooper scooper?

Bayernfan said...

I'll use this thread to wish everyone a good holiday season, even you intellectuals who ruin it for everyone else (Hello anonymous FOS staffers!)

I'm off to Austria for the holidays (how unAmerrucun of me...)! On the 28th, I'll be hanging out at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, so if anyone needs anything, let me know...

Jeff Gillenwater said...

...so if anyone needs anything, let me know...

You mean like a plane ticket?

Enjoy your trip. The higher altitude parts of that bit of the world should be beautiful about now.