Sunday, January 10, 2016

New Albany City Council Power Poll: Banker Blair set to benefit from Coffey's defection.


As the yawns of "what took him so long" continue to echo through the frozen expanse of Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats, and as Dan Coffey begins his new life just the same as the old life -- all for him and him over all -- let's take a glance at the new and revised ...

NEW ALBANY CITY COUNCIL POWER POLL 

(Note that in this breakdown of party affiliation, we're taking them at their word, because the number of actual Democrats in New Albany is far fewer than zero).

4 Democrats: Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin, Nash

3 Republicans: Aebersold, Barksdale, Knable

2 Independents: Blair, Coffey

Coffey says he's no longer a Democrat, but his hand's still being held out in case Jeff Gahan decides to fess up and grease it.

"I don't want this to be a reflection of how I feel about our current mayor or any other elected city officeholder."

Of course you don't, Dan, rather like when you didn't mean anything at all by "tiptoe through the tulips" as directed toward a fellow council member -- wink wink, nudge nudge.

But Gahan's long history of vindictiveness is well documented, and sources say he was genuinely surprised by Coffey's subconscious uncoupling (an obliviousness indicator if ever there was one), so a more likely outcome is the mayor dispatching his minions to reach out and touch Scott "Banker" Blair.

Blair spent most of the previous four years firmly within the mayor's suburban perimeter, but lately was spotted sidling up to Coffey in one of the great "lost" episodes of The Odd Couple: "The Beancounter, the Ragpicker, the University Education and a Gleaming Stiletto."

Blair recently visited the Bored of Works to demand greater council overview of big-time money projects, a matter of some erotica to him, even if he curiously refrained from examining tens of millions of TIF expenditures during his first wasted council term. Blair was stonily rebuffed by Warren Naps, who referred Blair to timeout with Don Gahan Corleone.

Gahan will regale Blair with tales of personal disappointment and possible redemption, enticing the banker with a wad of State Street development sites in an effort to assure a bloc of five council votes, which the mayor then will ignore, anyway, since most monetization business will be conducted as it has since 2012 -- in the back corridors, with Mayor Lite attending council meetings and the economic dishevelment director keeping as far away from the soon to be vacant Pillsbury site as his dog park will take him.

In short, Coffey might at last be neutralized, dooming his neglected district to 48 more months of pain, but setting the stage for a gigantic flushing sound in 2019.

Considering the depravity of our local political class, it's an outcome probably too good to be true.

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