Know that "traffic calming will occur prior to the tolls," just don't mention in which direction.

Much to my surprise, earlier tonight I came tantalizingly very close to having an actual policy conversation with a City Hall operative.

It seems that City Hall is hiring a Right-of-Way Coordinator.

This position administers the City's Right-of-Way Management System, including authorizing and overseeing all construction or maintenance activities in the City's public streets, right-of-ways, or potential developed right-of-way within new developments, under the provisions of the City's right-of-way requirements and ordinance of Infrastructure Standards.

Naturally, any mention of "right-of-way" immediately brings to mind New Albany's "wrong-of-one-way" streets, and so I asked a logical question -- and it was answered.

Jeeebus ... did glasnost and perestroika break out and no one told me? Here's how it went down.

Roger Baylor
Is the two-way street coordinator position being posted?

City Hall operative
The options are being engineered and costs determined. No coordinator needed.

RB
Is it still projected that nothing will occur until after the start of bridge tolls?

CHO
Traffic calming will occur prior to the tolls.

RB
One-way or two-way traffic calming?

CHO

Shrug.

Close but no cigar. You can't blame a guy for trying to squeeze facts out of City Hall, since the newspaper has no intention of doing it, and I understand how hard it must be to live in constant fear of losing one's job for telling the truth.

So, I'll say just this: Mayor Jeff Gahan is going to botch the two-way street dream. It's going to be an historic choke, composed of equal parts incomprehension, butchery, mockery and farce, and when the mayor finally and officially flushes Speck's plan down the commode, there'll be stinky dripping rotten egg on the faces of those who've continued to insist that he can be trusted.

They'll throw their arms up and lament: "But what could I have done?"

Not much.

Maybe take a stand, lead, agitate, educate, put your ass on the line, push back, have a spine and tell it like it is, but apart from those, no, I can't think of a single thing.